The Storm
by SionnachOghma
Summary: Part 2 of 2 Part 1 is 'The Calm' . Alec et al for Max, who is being educated on the reasons behind her creation. Ames White and Zack both return to the fray. The Familiars prepare to carry out their apocalyptic attack on mankind. Currently on hiatus.
1. Recap

**Note To Readers: Here I have posted recaps of Max Allan Collins' **_**Skin Game**_**, and of my own **_**The Calm,**_** which was Part One of this story. I figured this might be necessary for some readers who never read **_**Skin Game, **_**or who waited through all the stops and pauses while I abandoned _The Calm _and need a reminder of events****. Anyone who doesn't neet to brush up can just skip ahead to the Prologue.

* * *

**

_**Skin Game, **_by **Max Allan Collins**

The night Manticore burned, Max drew the attention of a chameleon-like Transgenic named Kelpy. Kelpy was instantly enamoured with Max, but was a recluse by nature, afraid of making himself known. Instead, he followed her to Seattle, watching her closely. He took a job at Jam Pony, his obsession with her growing daily.

After the escape from the Jam Pony siege into Terminal City, Cindy, Logan and Sketchy were forced to sneak out of the biohazard zone, in order to avoid being struck down by the numerous lethal toxins in the area. Logan, having bought a house just outside the perimeter, was able to provide safe passage in and out of Terminal City, by means of a tunnel connecting the Transgenics hideaway and his new property. He also devised a way to reach the public if necessary. At this time, the Eyes Only network was still down following the attack on Logan's apartment and the destruction of his equipment, so he told Sketchy that if he had any information they needed the world at large to know about, he would make a drop at Sandeman's/Joshua's old house, which Sketchy would then bring to his editor at _New World Weekly_.

When Kelpy's Tryptophan supplier - the nurse Familiar who tried to kill Max in the hospital - was killed, Ames took her place supplying Tryptophan to Kelpy, but not before lacing the supply with a mix of drugs that drove the already unstable Transgenic over the ragged edge.

Kelpy went insane and began killing people, and when rumours of a Transgenic serial killer began to spread, the others in Terminal City offered to help capture him.

Otto Gottlieb, concerned about White's motives and suspicious of his actions, began investigating his boss. When he found out the truth about Kelpy, he approached Ramon Clemente, who passed the word onto Max.

Becoming enraged at the idea of Max leading an effort to stop him, Kelpy decided to take the place of who he saw to be the most important person in her life – Logan. He captured Logan after tracking him to the Terminal City house, but wound up being cornered by Alec and Joshua. In a panic, he couldn't maintain proper control over his morphing ability, and without meaning to, altered his genome and appearance to resemble Logan's. When Max arrived, the standoff broke into a fight, and when Max attacked Kelpy, he was struck by the virus Manticore had implanted in her to kill Logan.

Before Kelpy died, Logan launched used the equipment at Terminal City to launch an Eyes Only broadcast. Kelpy's dying confession, along with the information provided by Gottlieb, made Ames White a fugitive.

The exposure of White's actions made for quite a lot of potential embarrassment for his bosses, which the Transgenics hoped to level the playing field and give them an opportunity to negotiate for their freedom.

* * *

_**The Calm**_

On a ranch not far outside Seattle, Zack has been suffering from nightmares and flashes of memory he can't quite identify, mixed in with the reprogramming efforts made by his captors after the ill-fated attack on Manticore. He knows he's a Transgenic, but remembers little else. The one thing he knows for certain is that Max, his most prominent memory, as well as a well-known face since the Jam Pony siege, has the answers he needs to piece his life back together.

When a suicide bomber made it over the perimeter fence at Terminal City, Alec shielded Max from the brunt of the blast, and was almost killed as a result of massive head trauma from the force of the explosion. Logan sent Dr. Sam Carr into Terminal City to help, and Sam was able relieve the pressure on Alec's brain. He has since made a full recovery, despite the fact that Max came close to strangling him for being so 'stupid' as to jump in front of an exploding bomb to protect her.

Logan left a package for Sketchy at Joshua's old house, containing information gathered about the Familiars. When Sketchy brought the package to his editor, as instructed, she produced the results of an investigation of her own – an article she had planned on running that very week, which would identify Logan Cale as Eyes Only. Instead, she decided to bury the story for the time being, and offered Sketchy the opportunity to write the story Logan had provided about the Familiars. She teamed him up with a more experienced reporter named Ben Mitchell. Unknown to them, Mitchell is a Familiar, placed at _New World Weekly _following their coverage of the Transgenic story.

Since they had covered the Manticore escapees long before the rest of the world had even believed any such beings existed, _New World Weekly_ had gained quite a reputation as a trustworthy source of information, quite to the surprise of the staff and editor, who usually enjoyed making up stories about aliens in Congress and the President's android wife. Mitchell, like other Familiars placed among various news media, was there in case they ever found out anything his people didn't want the world knowing.

Logan, having Sketchy followed by an unidentified Transgenic, was informed about Mitchell attempting to follow Sketchy. He called Sketchy and told him not to go to the house but didn't say why. Sketchy, having instantly developed distrust of the other reporter, thought Mitchell was simply trying to steal the story. The following morning, Sketchy had two shadows he couldn't see – the Transgenic Logan had watching over him, and a pair of Familiars tasked by the Conclave to attempt to locate and capture Logan by following Sketchy to his source.

In order to make it easier to keep close watch on him, and avoid raising the suspicions of the two Familiars should they notice her hanging around, Sketchy's protector approached him in Crash, introducing herself as 'Melissa'. Sketchy, having no idea who his new girlfriend really is, is happy to just consider himself blessed, completely unaware that at any moment he could be killed by the very people he's been writing a report about.

Donald Lydecker, presumed dead since his car was found in a river, has been watching the Terminal City situation from a distance. The day of the bombing, he contacted Logan, knowing better than to believe the story put out to the public – that Max and Alec were both dead. He asked Logan to get in touch with Max and arrange a meeting.

When Max and Lydecker met up the next day – Max in disguise to avoid recognition, and covered from all angles by a security detail of half a dozen Transgenics in case Lydecker tried anything, Lydecker offered a gesture of good faith by revealing that Senator James McKinley was a Familiar. McKinley was also the Director of Manticore for a short time, between Sandeman's leaving and Lydecker assuming command, having been placed there while the Conclave decided whether or not they should arrange to have Manticore shut down, and all the Transgenics destroyed. It was McKinley who ordered the Manticore guards to rip out Isaac's tongue. Also, during his brief tenure, he ordered the execution of a pair of X-3s who attempted to escape from Manticore through the Infirmary. Lydecker wouldn't reveal how he had uncovered this information.

Before Max departed, Lydecker told her that his assistance was always available if required. Unknown to Max et al, Lydecker is taking orders from somebody else, and while all eyes were on the pair of them when they met up, a team under Lydecker's command placed a tracker on Max's motorcycle. That night, the same team assaulted and annihilated a Phalanx unit deployed by the Conclave to kill Max, who had been spotted by Sketchy's shadows when Max dropped in on her friends. The attack was carried out before the Phalanx could ambush her. The whole fight went by without Max ever knowing her life had been in jeopardy to begin with.

The Phalanx team leader, Thula, who had already been humiliated when the attack on Jam Pony descended into farce, was cornered by her attackers, bleeding from gunshot wounds in both her legs. Despite these injuries, the sight of Lydecker was more than enough to make her leap to her feet. Lydecker barely avoided having his throat ripped out when Thula attacked, screaming at him and calling him a 'reject'. Before Lydecker finished her off with two bullets in the face, she commented that he 'never should have been born'.

When Logan called Sketchy to tell him there was another package at Joshua's house for him, he instructed him not to tell Ben Mitchell about the information contained within, but to show it only to his editor. Logan warned him that Mitchell was dangerous, but also assured him that he was protected. He didn't go into details, just told him not let himself be followed to the house.

When the first part of Sketchy's article was released, it contained something the Familiars didn't expect when they had decided that letting the story go ahead if it meant they might get to Logan was worth the risk – everything Logan had managed to uncover about Eric Sandeman, the former Manticore director, and father of all the Transgenics. Mention was also made of Sandeman's not-so-happy family, including his eldest son, Alain, who would become Ames White.

Realising their mistake at letting the story run, the Conclave have decided that drastic action is required. Their orders, passed down through McKinley to Mitchell, are to eliminate Sketchy's editor, Sketchy himself, and anyone the pair have ever met, as a warning to Logan. McKinley has also reactivated the techies White used to track Logan's broadcasts before, confident that if Logan can't be captured, then he can at least be kept on the run to the point where he'll have no opportunity to keep Eyes Only online. McKinley commented to Mitchell that the game of Cat & Mouse doesn't have to go on for very long, anyway. The time the Familiars have been waiting for rapidly approaches.

Max, furious at Logan's actions, as well as for keeping her in the dark about the whole thing, begins making her way to his hideaway to confront him. Before she can get there, however, she is attacked by Lydecker's assault team, being led by Otto Gottlieb.

A rescue team is sent from Terminal City to find Max and bring her home. Alec, despite being a fairly famous face since the Jam Pony siege and the incident with Kelpy, refuses to stay behind, and goes separately. When he's recognised by Sector Police, a large number of Municipal Police officers who were on there way to check out reports of gunfire on Pike Street (where Max has been chased into the Farmer's Market by Gottlieb and his team) divert to try and hunt Alec down instead. This clears the way for the rescue team, but by the time they get there, there's no sign of Max or her abductors.

Later, a drugged Max is sealed into a coffin on board a cargo plane bound for Quebec.


	2. Prologue: Winter 1995

**Prologue**

_December 15th, 1995_

With it's large garden, pool, and fairly secluded location, the old, once-Victorian-style-now-semi-modern house was still beautiful despite the clash of tastes, and would usually have been well out of their price range, but when a surprise inheritance from her parents proved more than enough for a down payment, Rachel had bullied her husband relentlessly and shamelessly until he gave in.

The pool now was covered for the winter, and all the plants and bushes surrounding the lawn lay dead and bare, covered in a frosty skin. Earlier that day, during what had at the time seemed like an interminable wait, Rachel had thought about the local kids who had eagerly awoken expecting to hear it was a snow day, only to find that the heavy fall that had begun the night before had ground to a halt shortly after midnight, forced to endure the bitter cold in poorly heated classrooms, including the one she'd been absent from today. She'd thought about Michael, about calling him to let him know what had happened, but had decided to wait until she knew what it meant first. Now, checking her watch, she realised that the hour and a half she would have to wait before he got in would be too long, and opted to call him as soon as her hands were free.

Not wanting to set her things down in the slush on the ground, it took a minute to manoeuvre to the point where she could get the key in the lock and twist it. The lock itself was typically uncooperative, needing to be shaken back and forth a few times before finally _click_ing contently when she finally rammed the door with her shoulder, almost dropping a paper bag from the bookshop in the process. It occurred to her as she crossed the threshold that it would have been much simpler to simply leave everything in the car until she'd actually gotten the door open.

_Now you tell me, _she told herself, to which her self responded: _**You're**__ the one who's been on another planet most of the day, so don't bitch to me._

Tuning out the inner monologue, she moved into the kitchen and let everything fall onto the kitchen table. She decided not to delay, and was about to pick up the phone and ask that her husband come home early, when suddenly her hand froze in midair. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and all heat seamed to leave the room. Reacting on pure instinct, she spun, ready to strike out… but there was nothing to strike at. There was nobody in the house but her.

This was by no means the first time Rachel's inner alarm had gone off so suddenly, and it always meant something. Her husband joked about what he called her 'Spidey-sense', ruling out her mentions of it as coincidence, but Rachel knew to take it seriously. Once, during the drive into work, she'd suddenly decided to leave her usual route and go another, much longer way, and sitting in the faculty room during recess, she'd heard about the pileup she'd avoided that morning, which had killed three people.

Only last year, out for a walk after a pointless argument with her husband, despite hearing nobody coming up behind her, she'd flung back an elbow, then turned and delivered a kick to the crotch of man she'd never seen before in her life. For the briefest of moments, she thought she'd just brutalised a man for no reason other than her own paranoia, but as he'd doubled over clutching his broken nose with one hand and he's badly bruised balls with the other, the switchblade he'd kept hidden up his sleeve had fallen to the ground between them. Kicking the knife away before running for her life, she'd dialled the police as soon as she got far enough to realise she wasn't being followed. Her attacker-come-victim was later convicted on two counts of rape, one attempted murder.

Despite being thankful for her instincts, Michael still remained sceptical of such things as extra sensory abilities, but Rachel saw scepticism as a fatal error. Standing in the empty house, every inch of her sensing the kind of trouble that made her break out in a cold sweat, she heard her own voice in her head as the alarm came back afresh. _RUN!_

Car keys in hand, everything else forgotten, she was almost at the front when both it and the frame splintered, cracked, and fell to pieces. Large, spiderweb cracks formed on the full height glass panes on either side of the frame. Rachel leapt aside just in time to avoid being hit by the door itself, as the powerful blow sent it careering towards her. Had she not moved quickly enough, it would have hit her hard enough to break both her legs. As was, it crashed to the ground and skidded along the wooden floor until it hit the wall just beside the kitchen door, where it came to a halt.

In the instant it took her to go turn and run for the back door instead of the front, Rachel's mind automatically took stock of the man standing in the doorway. He wasn't especially tall, and his slender form didn't display anything approaching the type of muscle that would have been required to kick the door clean off its hinges and send it sailing down the hall. A ski-mask obscured all but his mouth and eyes. The eyes were a vivid blue which for some reason, despite, or perhaps _because_ _of_ the horror of the moment, put her in mind of Captain Hook; a dazzling forget-me-not blue that would have been beautiful if not for the icy malice that filled them.

The mental inventory was forgotten as Captain Hook slowly placed one foot inside her home, and Rachel dashed back into the kitchen.

While usually she would berate herself for such a lapse in concentration, she was delighted to see that she had forgotten to put the key to the back door on the shelf that morning; it was still in the lock. She tried to slow down just enough to grip the key and turn it, but instead found herself propelled forward by the two powerful hands that came up behind her. Unable to stop, she saw the world go crystal-white, then red, while at the same time everything in view started doing somersaults and cartwheels. Before she could begin to scramble for a little equilibrium, Rachel then felt a sharp thump on the back of her head, and realised she was flat on her back on the kitchen floor. As her attacker grabbed her and yanked her to her feet, she saw the shattered pain of glass, and her vision was further affected by droplets of blood dripping into her left eye from the gash just above.

Whatever air might have been left in her lungs was expelled when she was slammed down on the counter, but she caught an opportunity when an excited yelping from the doorway distracted Hook. Rusty was a feisty little Jack Russell, far too brave for something so tiny. Once he had his target's attention, he charged, and in the time it took her attacker to dispel the terrier with a boot and grab her again, she'd managed to reach one of the knives on the far end of the counter.

She tried, as Michael had taught her, to push her fear aside and simply do what needed to be done to escape as if this were a normal, everyday situation. _All well and good for __**him, **_her own voice screamed at her, _when for all we know murderous lunatics probably __**are **__a normal, everyday situation!_ She struck in a blind panic, half of her struggling to reach the door while the other half, the half gripping the blade-handle, knew that wasn't going to happen while Hook had a hold of her.

In her frustration and terror, she thrust the blade over her shoulder, felt the slight resistance as it slashed at something solid. Then, spinning around with one foot outstretched, she kicked him behind the knee as hard as she could. If it hurt, he gave no indication, though it was enough to knock him down. As he fell, he reached out with a bloody hand, and Rachel saw that it was his arm she'd cut – the wound was long, but probably not very deep. Grabbing hold to make sure she didn't run this time, he inadvertently pulled her down atop him, and half the length of the six inch blade of the butcher knife in her hand ended up jammed in his left shoulder.

The scene seemed to freeze horribly as Hook noticed blade protruding from his flesh. He didn't cry out in pain, or even flinch. He simply cocked his head to one side, regarding the gleaming blade curiously. Then the icy eyes turned back to her, the malice replaced by something else she couldn't quite identify.

His voice was deep, but cracked, as though he'd been screaming for hours at the top of his voice. "I can see what he saw in you," he told her, as if somehow proud of her.

Before Rachel could even begin to ponder this statement, the hand that had been clutching her arm moved to her throat, not squeezing, but forcing her first to her knees, then to her feet. She tried to knock his arm away, but he maintained a firm grip. Desperately, she reached for the knife and as her fingers closed around the blade, his free hand closed around hers, and he yanked the blade free. Then he squeezed.

Rachel screamed as her fingers were crushed, and when he released, the knife fell from her ruined hand, clattering to the ground as he landed a blow on the side of her head.

She must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing she knew, her feet weren't touching the ground. The hand on her throat held her in mid-air, her feet kicking at nothing. Again she struggled to free herself to no avail.

Hook's eyes bore a look one might expect to see on a vet who was being forced to put down a child's dog, as he slowly drew back a fist.

He hit her low in the gut with the force of a bullet, and let her fall to the ground, where she crumpled in agony, her hands moving to her stomach. As comprehension slowly pierced through the pain, she seemed to forget all about Hook still standing over her. Drawing her knees to her chest, her body began to shake with silent sobs.

* * *

The high-pitched whine of the heart monitor continued, and the nurses who had been dashing to and fro began to slow their pace. The two uniformed officers outside the doors were joined by a two others. Out of uniform, but clearly cops. Clearly the two who had come in with the ambulance had known right off the bat that someone from Homicide would be needed. 

Glancing once more at the monitor, one of the doctors turned then to the woman on the table. Two tubes protruded from her chest amid the mass of bruises that seemed to cover her entire upper body. Her wide open brown eyes were glassy, as they had been for some time, seeming to shine on a face that had been rendered unrecognisable. One hand hung limply off the side of the table, blood congealing where shattered bone poked tore through one of the knuckles.

"How long since the last pulse?"

The answer was lost as the doors crashed open. A man in olive drab combat pants and sweatshirt, a pistol holstered at his waist and sheer horror painted all over his face barged in, the officers trying to hold him back. "Sir, you need to wait..."

"It's okay," the doctor cut the cop off. Eyes moving to clock above the door, he announced quietly, "Time of death 1758."

Rachel's husband cried out as he dashed towards her, not noticing when a nurse didn't move aside quickly enough, almost floored as he shoved his way past her. Reaching her side, he froze, gasping in horror at what used to be his wife's face. At first he simply stood staring down at her, before gingerly moving one hand to the ruined face. Before he could touch her he recoiled, and as the tears began streaming down his face, his eyes moved slowly down her body, to her unbroken hand. It seemed the only part of her that hadn't been damaged. Everything else was a ruin.

His hand moved slowly to hers, and as he grasped her and felt the heat that was still there, all strength left him, and he fell to the floor. He didn't make a sound. Tears continued to silently fall, his face turned pale and his breathing slowed as shock set in.

This was impossible. Only this morning...

A hand on his shoulder brought him back as the doctor who had announced her death knelt beside him and began to speak.

"Mr Lydecker?" He spoke slowly, quietly, as if dreading what he was about to ask. "We need to examine your wife, and the Police need to speak with you, but first we need to ask you something in relation to the exams."

Not seeming to hear the doctor, Donald Lydecker raised his head, speaking to the whole room. "Was she awake at all?"

"Briefly," the doctor told him after a short pause. "When you're wife was first brought in, she was clinically dead. She had no pulse, no heartbeat, and both her lungs had been collapsed by broken ribs. We managed to re-inflate her lungs with chest tubes, and were able to get her heart going again. After about fifteen minutes she briefly regained consciousness for a little less than a minute."

"Did she say anything?" Deadpan.

Having heard the husbands name mentioned by the police prior to his arrival, the doctor hesitated again. "She was asking for someone named Michael…" He stopped, fearing the reaction, wondering why he couldn't just lie.

"That's me," Lydecker responded, sensing the doctor's apprehension. "She always calls me by my middle name. I don't use my father's name."

* * *

"We had something similar a couple of months ago. Two or three guys forced their way into a home, beat and raped the woman living there. She came here, right?" 

"Yeah, comatose for a couple of days afterwards," the doctor confirmed. "I don't think this is the same, though. Not really my area, but this looks a hell of a lot worse than a simple beating for kicks. This was pure torture. She didn't have a single rib left; _massive_ abdominal trauma; then there's the, um, the rest.

"The other victim had bruising around the groin from the rape, but I think this one was just punched, maybe kicked. There's a Kit being done now, but I don't think it'll be much use. She had sex with her husband this morning. Anything we find is probably just gonna be from him."

"Still," the female officer noted, "we haven't caught anyone for that yet." Shifting topics, she asked, "Did you see anything to suggest the use of a weapon?"

"No. The coroner might find something, but from what I saw, whoever did this used just his own two hands."

The cops exchanged puzzled glances. "How the hell could _that _happen without any weapons being involved?" one asked, jerking his head uncomfortably towards the room where Rachel's body still laid.

"If you asked me yesterday, I'd say it couldn't. Suffice it to say, whoever did this would be pretty big. Like, Hulk big. Steroids or PCP probably played a role."

"The 'multiple attackers' idea looks better and better. One guy, unarmed, doing all this… I just can't get there. And I've worked Homicide for fifteen years."

"Well, rather you than me," the doctor shrugged. "All I know is, if we get another like this, I'm switching to family practice."

The police had talked to Lydecker briefly before asking him to wait while they quizzed the doctor. As he sat in a chair by the admit desk, he tried to banish the image of Rachel's corpse, struggling to think of something, anything else. Nothing worked.

Without meaning to he picked up most of their conversation. Occasionally a few words came from the behind the desk, too. At the mention of his wife's name, he cocked his head to hear what was being said.

A nurse was staring at the board, a confused look on her face. "Rachel Lydecker? What happened to her?"

The desk clerk took a sip of his coffee before answering. "Beaten to death. They're doing a Rape Kit before sending her upstairs. It was pretty brutal; they're kind of in a hurry to get autopsy results they can use to help find the guy who did it." Seeing the shock on the nurse's face, the clerk looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Did you know her?"

"I just met her today," she breathed. "She almost fainted while driving, and nearly wrapped her car around a telephone pole. Turns out she was pregnant."


	3. Chapter One

**Chapter 1**

"I got the security footage."

Alec crossed the Command Centre to where Dix was sitting at one of the old computers they'd been using to set up a safety net to avoid Logan's broadcasts being traced. On the screen, a paused video displayed the scene from the Farmer's Market.

"How did you get it? I thought the system there was so old there was no online access."

"There isn't," Dix said grumpily. "I had to wait until the cops actually pulled the tapes and stored the video on their own computers. Not exactly quick, these guys. Then I just logged in with a stolen password and downloaded the files."

Joshua appeared behind Alec, his massive form overshadowing both him and Dix. "Found her?"

"We might be getting somewhere," Alec told him.

Since the team had returned the previous day, not long after Alec himself had made it back following a brief game of Cat & Mouse with the police, Joshua had been hovering around the Command Centre non-stop, moving from television news reports to peering over people's shoulders while they worked, furious at his not being able to do something to help bring Max back.

Alec knew how he felt, his entire contribution to the rescue effort consisting of being recognised by Sector Police at a checkpoint, subsequently putting two cops in the hospital before returning to Terminal City. So far, the news of his exaggerated death hadn't reached the media, but yesterday, most of the Municipal Police on their way to respond to the call about gunfire at the Farmer's Market had instead diverted to try and corner the Transgenic who was beating up their fellow cops. While making things easier for the team that had gone ahead, it hadn't made any difference for Max.

"Let's see it," he ordered.

Clicking on the play icon onscreen, Dix shifted slightly aside to accommodate Alec and Joshua.

The scene from the marketplace showed two men and a woman in full urban assault gear, including ski-masks. The man who seemed to be in charge had apparently been raised in a nuclear power plant, making the large shotgun he held look like it had been built for a dwarf, and while the other male behind him held only a tazer, the camera which they'd been walking away from showed two pistols holstered at the small of his back. With the angle of the camera, Alec couldn't quite make out what the woman held, but assumed from her stance that it was either a pistol or another tazer.

"Is there any other angle on this?" Alec asked.

Dix shook his head. "Not many cameras to begin with, and most don't work. A few shop owners on the lower levels have their own installed, but security's never really been a major concern here. Mostly just fish and a little fruit, and there are a lot of stalls – even if you manage to pocket an apple or two without the guy himself seeing it, odds are someone else will notice. Not worth maintaining the security cameras for the one or two guys who might avoid being noticed – the cameras cost a hell of a lot more than what anyone's gonna steal.

"Alec," Joshua cut in, nodding to the screen.

Those onscreen now stood with weapons levelled at a squat little man trying to pick himself up off the floor, slipping a little on what looked like spilled ice from an overturned crate of fish before regaining his balance. As they turned to move on, the hulk in the lead suddenly began shaking violently and dropped his shotgun as something struck him in the back. Although no audio accompanied what they saw, it was clear he was crying out in pain.

Just as Alec realised it was the business end of a tazer that had hit him, Max appeared in the bottom right corner of the screen, moving so quickly they didn't seem to even see her until a she delivered a dropkick to their leader's back, sending him crashing right through the stall of the man they'd just had their weapons pointed at. In the same movement, she spun in mid-air, and landed facing the other two.

Inside of ten seconds it all seemed to be over, except for the big guy scrambling dizzily to his feet again, looking like a good breeze would send him over the nearby railings and into the sea. However, before Max could finish him off, she spun awkwardly, clutching at her right shoulder as if she'd been shot. Beside him, Alec heard Joshua gasp in panic, and saw Max right herself, her face now fully visible, first contorted in pain and fury, then suddenly replaced by something more akin to dumbstruck surprise.

The instant the two newcomers appeared onscreen, Alec realised what Max had been hit with as one of them fired off the second round, and Max was blasted off her feet. Alec placed a hand on Joshua's shoulder when his friend let out another horrified gasp punctuated by a whine. "No blood," he told him. "They used rubber bullets. She's still alive."

"We can cross the Familiars off the list of suspects," Dix noted. "They woulda blown her head clean off."

Alec shot him a look to shut him up as this comment made Joshua's eyebrows almost leap clear off his face. "It's gotta be Lydecker. Maybe a couple of agencies would've taken the time to examine that news footage from the bombing and realised she was still alive, but they never would've had the chance to tag her bike," he pointed out, referring to the tracer they'd found on her motorcycle after the team had brought it back. He turned to search out Mole, started a little at finding him two inches from his face, and asked, "Where are we on finding _him_?"

Mole jerked his head towards another row of computers and the guys working at them. "So far, squat. Up until the day he met with Max, he wasn't trying to hide himself. Why would he? Nobody looks for the dead guy. But ever since then, he's a ghost again, like he never existed in the first place."

"All eyes were on him and Max, so he had his guys tag her bike," Alec guessed, then he goes underground and waits. "She was out for the whole night after she met him. Why not have her grabbed then?"

"Logan," Joshua offered, holding up a copy of _New World Weekly _that had been issued the day before. The cover displayed two photographs side-by-side; the Manticore symbol, and it's twin from the Kiloman burial site. Underneath, bold yellow writing proclaimed '_Manticore 5,000 B.C: Ancient Apocolyptic Cult Provides Roots of Modern Supersoldier Program!_

"Something in there set this off," Mole agreed. "And Logan still ain't answering calls. If we don't hear anything soon, I'll send someone over, find out what's going on."

Alec gave no reply, but turned back to the paused video, where Max lay sprawled on the floor, one hand clutching at her chest where she'd been shot. His eyes on the man with the shotgun, the one man whose ski mask wasn't pulled down, he grabbed the mouse and click on 'Play', but the tape continued for less than two seconds. The moment it began again, the woman on the right of the man with the second shotgun fired, and Alec could just barely make out the dart sticking in Max's thigh, before the woman turned towards the camera, drew a second pistol, and fired. The scene was replaced by a snowstorm of static.

"Dammit!" Dragging the cursor back, he watched the last few seconds again, trying to get a look at the face of the man with the shotgun, but his back was to the camera the entire time, the feed cutting out just as he reached Max's side. Rewinding one more time, this time he paused on Max's face as she turned to face the shooter. "She recognised him," he said to nobody in particular, "and he wasn't someone she expected to see at this kinda party."

Turning to Dix again, he ordered, "I need to see his face. Any other cameras in the place - on the lower floors, in stores, everything." Dix started to speak, to remind him that this was the only feed they had access to, but Alec cut him off. "Send people down there to steal the tapes and discs if you have to," he growled. "This guy's our only lead. I wanna know everything about him, right now!"

"Alec!"

"WHAT?!"

Joshua didn't react to Alec's roared response, but instead moved quickly to one of the television screens piled up in the corner and turned the volume up.

A woman with close-cropped blond hair and too much makeup was speaking. At the bottom of the screen, a yellow and black banner announced '_Breaking News - Terminal City Death Hoax'_.

"...following up on witness accounts from yesterday's abduction in the Pike Street Farmers Market, we can now confirm the purported identity of the kidnap victim as Max Guevara, the Transgenic figurehead who was supposedly killed in a bomb attack on Terminal City two weeks ago."

"Well," Mole grumbled, "this is less than ideal."

As the image of the newscaster was replaced by the video Alec and the others had just been watching, the woman continued. "Despite the brutality of what you're now seeing, it appears that the masked men and women shown here appeared focused on capturing the very much alive Max, rather than killing her. Witnesses on the scene claim the unidentified attackers knocked her out and carried her away, disappearing from the scene only seconds before a possible Transgenic search party arrived."

Alec turned the volume back down again and began walking away, when Mole said, "The good news is the press don't have our number - no calling for comments. But the cops are gonna want to hear some kind of explanation. Maybe we should call Clemente."

Again Alec gave no response. Instead, his attention turned to a round table near one of the exits, where four more computers sat unused. "That security network you set up for Logan's broadcasts," he said slowly to Dix, as a phone by Dix's computer began to ring. "Can we use those ourselves to broadcast from here?"

"Uh…sure. What did you have in mind?

"Someone wanna answer that? If it's the cops, tell 'em they'll know the score soon enough."

* * *

Cindy was just about to hang up when the phone was finally answered.

"Hello," came a deep, anxious voice, as if he'd never used a phone before, and it occurred to Cindy then that he probably hadn't. "Joshua."

"Hey, doggy-dog. Original Cindy here."

"Cindy!" he barked excitedly, before his voice dropped dejectedly. "Max not here. They took her."

"I know. I saw the video on the news. Any clue who 'they' is?"

"Not sure. Working for Lydecker, maybe." He growled the name, biting off each syllable. "Don't know where he's hiding."

"Is there anything that needs doin' out here that I can help with?" Cindy offered hopefully.

"Don't think so. Coming out to look for her ourselves."

Cindy jumped a little at this, then, uncertain she'd actually heard what she thought she heard, asked, "What do you mean?"

"Alec going to explain."

"Okay, put him on."

"Explain to everyone," he told her. "Oh, gotta blaze."

"What? Hey!?" No good. She was listening to a dial tone.

A very confused Cindy was about to hit redial when the receiver was plucked from her hand and slammed back in place. "Confirm your sordid social plans outside of working hours!" Normal commanded, tapping his watch hard enough to crack the glass. "Now get a move on. Bib-bip..."

"You forgot one," Cindy pointed out. Then, seeing him staring in confusion at the screen in the corner, she noticed what had grabbed his attention. Whistling to Herbal, she signalled him to increase the volume.

"It's up high," he told her, shrugging. "Jus' no sound. Same on every channel."

Black on a white background, serpentine tail touching one edge of the screen while its roaring lion's head stood tall at the other end, was the Manticore symbol.

Normal opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as the image changed. Alec appeared onscreen, seated on a stool in what looked like a security station in Terminal City. Behind him, teams of – mostly non-human – Transgenics sat at rows of computers, paying little or no attention to Alec or the camera. On Alec's left, Mole stood with shotgun held carelessly in his right hand, while to the right and a little further back, Joshua sat on his haunches, fingers interlocked. Both stared directly into the camera, and neither made a sound.

Cindy doubted that anybody who was watching this really needed to hear them speak in order to get the message.

"Yes," Alec began, speaking quietly and slowly, "we lied. Someone had just broken into our home and tried to blow us up, so we thought it might not be a good idea to announce to the world that they botched the job and should try again. We're not going to apologise for protecting ourselves."

He paused a moment to allow this to sink in. A phone began ringing in the background; Normal clicked a button on the remote attached to the cord of his headset, and the answering machine took over.

"Right now, one of our number is missing, and instead of helping to try and find her and bring her home, the police would rather devote their time to leaking videos to the press to make us look like the bad guys for lying."

"Is he _trying_ to start a war?" Normal squealed incredulously.

* * *

"Since the proper authorities are too busy with a smear campaign to do their jobs, we're going to bring her home ourselves. I'm aware that a lot of people like us a lot better when there's a chain-link fence and a lot of guns between us and them, and no doubt Mayor Kellerman will be repeating his request that we remain inside Terminal City, but let's be clear: we're not asking permission. We're giving fair warning. We're going to find out what happened, we're going to get our friend back, and anyone who tries to stop us had better start cutting deals with whoever they pray to. They'll be meeting up real soon."

With a brief nod to Dix, Alec stood up and walked away.

Mole grinned from ear to ear at the thought of the reactions Alec's little blog would evoke. "Don't ever go into public relations, man," he chided jokingly.

Alec ignored him. "Just leave one guy on the search for Lydecker," he told Dix. "Maybe there's some small chance he screwed up somewhere, but I doubt it. There's no point wasting too many people on it.

"For Max's meet with Lydecker, you ran a search for Transgenic faces that hadn't shown up on the news or in police bulletins – go back to that. I wanna know exactly how many people we have who can move around without attracting the wrong kind of attention."

"So, despite what they just heard, you and Joshua won't be hitting the streets to question witnesses?"

"Maybe later. Right now, let 'em scream at each other over who's to blame for a sector full of pissed off mutants declaring war. We can get more done if they're too busy fighting among themselves and trying to calm us down, and now, anyone who _is _looking for us is going to be _expecting _to see all our famous faces out there.

"The market is first on the list – swap rumours with people who work there, pick out the crap and see if there's anything useful leftover. Look for other cameras, maybe the cops missed a couple of tapes – see if we can get a look at this guys' face."

He was in the middle of telling them to send someone over to talk to Logan, when the phone in his pocket started ringing. "Well, at least we know he's not dead," he spat before answering. "Finally decided we were worth talking to? We've been trying to get hold of you since this time yesterday!"

"What the hell are you doing?" Logan yelled back. "You just went on national television and threatened to murder anyone who looks at you funny!"

"Well, it is very rude to stare," Alec quipped dryly. "Why haven't you been answering your phone? I was about to send someone out to make sure you were still alive."

"I've been running up some leads," came the response, punctuated by a long, loud yawn. "Over the past six months, Sector Police have upped their security to exclude cable and satellite access to Checkpoint Security feeds except by direct sending. I didn't think I'd be able to get some cop on the phone and convince him I was CIA requesting the feeds for an investigation, so I had to get my hands on the actual discs. Did you notice the guy in the news feed?"

"Yeah. I'm sending people out to the market to see if there are tapes from any other cameras that might show his face."

"I might be able to find something another way. I got feeds of the trucks that were chasing her passing a checkpoint before the attack. Nothing after, and the cars they were driving turned up not far from the market, burned out, so they must have had new ones waiting. The windows in the ones on the checkpoint video are tinted, but at one point the driver's windows are lowered when to flash an I.D. I'm trying to brighten it up, see if I can get a look at anyone in the cars, but the angles aren't great. It could take a while."

"Okay. Meantime I'll see if our guys can turn up anything at the market."

"No!" Logan snapped. "You're not gonna find anything there, and all you'll do is cause _more_ trouble. I should have results on this by the end of the day. Let me figure out who these guys are before –"

"Well, I really appreciate your willingness to clean up your own mess, Logan, but the fact that they took her alive doesn't necessarily mean Max has the luxury of time. There might be something there, and we need answers now."

For a moment there was nothing but total silence. When he spoke again, the effort to keep calm was clear. "I didn't do this."

"Maybe not on purpose, but you _know_ you set the ball rolling," Alec hissed. "That's why we couldn't get you on the phone until now; you didn't want to talk until you had something to yell at somebody else for!

"You want to do something useful, make sure nobody _else_ winds up having to answer for your fun and games. Get Sketchy out of harm's way before you get him killed."

"Sketchy'll be fine," Logan began, but whatever else he was about to say was cut off by a yell from Luke.

"We got a breach!"

Glad for the excuse to hang up, Alec dropped the phone back into his pocket and moved to Luke's computer. "Where?"

"B-4," said Luke, pulling up the feed from one of the perimeter cameras. "Guy hopped the fence over by the old textiles factory."

"Away from the press and the crowds, but heavier toxic exposure than other areas almost as soon as you're inside. Maybe these clowns are getting' serious," Mole suggested.

"They'd have to be eating a lot of green vegetables, too," Luke told him. "When I say he hopped the fence, I mean in one go, from the ground on the outside, right over."

"Security team?" Alec called over his shoulder.

"Almost there," Dix called back.

"Send a second one."

"Could be a Transgenic," Mole pointed out.

"I would've thought any Transgenic who was gonna move into Terminal City would be here already. Why show up now?"

"Camera didn't catch much," Luke sighed. The screen showed nothing more than a dark blur in the corner of the frame for a fraction of a second.

"Security team's opened their radios," Dix announced. "You want to hear it?"

Alec crossed the floor, and Dix unplugged the headset, allowing everyone in the room to hear the radio chatter.

"Control, One-Alpha," came a hoarse male voice Alec didn't recognise, "Team Two has arrived at RV. Converging on section B-4 from North and West."

"Control, Two-Alpha," Lin whispered, "possible sighting on subject, Eastbound."

"Cameras?" Alec asked.

Luke and two others were pulling up feeds from the other security cameras in the area, but so far there was nothing to see but their own people.

"FREEZE!" The fiercely roared command coming from Lin produced the image of a woman twelve feet tall who spent her spare time beating up gorillas. "Raise your hands above your head!"

On the security feeds, Lin and her squad could be seen from two different angles, fanned out with weapons trained on someone just out of sight. Seconds later, the other team approached from another direction.

Silently signalling to her second-in-command, Lin handed him her pistol and approached the unseen intruder. "Keep your hands up," came the order over the crackly radio. "Keep facing in that direction, but take three steps towards me."

Slowly, the intruder came into view on one of the screens, his back to both security teams and the cameras. He was head and shoulders above Lin, well-built with blonde hair. Despite not being able to see his face, Alec was certain he knew him from somewhere.

Patting him down, Lin's hands came from under his jacket with another pistol, which she slid along the ground behind her for the other Team Leader to retrieve. Her hands moved higher, checking sleeves and the lining of his jacket. When she reached his shoulders, she pulled the back of his turtleneck collar down. Pausing and glancing back over her shoulder at the others, she stepped away from the intruder. "Turn around," she ordered, though not with quite the force she'd used before.

The moment the man's face came into view, Alec felt a despairing groan leave him. "I don't believe this."

"You're Manticore?" Lin asked.

"X5-599," Zach responded calmly.


	4. Chapter Two

_**Christmas Day 1995**_

Stumbling as his foot missed the last step, he barely managed to catch himself short of a cracked skull as he slipped on the slick wooden floor. Walking unsteadily into the living room, he reached for a bottle on the coffee table and dropped heavily onto the couch. As he began to unscrew the cap on the bottle, he realised it was empty, and instead tossed it towards the fireplace, where it struck the mantelpiece and knocked down a picture frame, both bottle and frame exploding as they crashed to the ground.

Cursing loudly, Lydecker went and picked up the frame, not noticing when he cut his finger on a shard from the bottle. The pane of glass was completely shattered, and the ornate wooden frame itself had splintered from one corner to another, the joints broken, but the photo itself was undamaged.

Tossing the ruined frame aside and sitting back down on the couch, he stared numbly at the picture. Dark, hypnotic brown eyes gazed lovingly up at him from among a mass of light brown curls surrounding a pale, delicate face. Her thin lips curled slightly in an ever-present, inscrutable smile.

When it came to Rachel's thoughts, anybody who ever tried to decipher what was going through her mind would have been lost at sea. Even in the nine years since high school, six of which they'd been married for, that had followed Lydecker had been constantly surprised by her ability to become almost a completely different person at the slightest whim. Most of the people they'd gone to school with had thought maybe she wasn't quite right in the head, and though in her youth the frequent changes had often caught even her off guard, driving her to seek help, she'd been assured by more than one therapist that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. "You're a force of Nature," one had told her quite simply. "Enjoy it while it lasts. Most people grow out of it after college, and spend a good deal of later life trying to go back."

In the end, she never did grow out of it, but became far more comfortable in her quirkiness, as did Lydecker. Even now, he felt the slightest of smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth as he recalled the day this photo had been taken. Dragging him out of bed and into the car as dawn broke on the last day they would spend together before he was scheduled to go to Panama, she'd driven them out into the middle of nowhere, produced a blanket and picnic basket, and, never mind that it was the middle of winter, they had sat outside for hours, curled up together until the cold had become absolutely unbearable.

Apparently feeling it was too early to go home, Rachel had instead suggested shelter in the nearest building; an old church, where, as it turned out, the priest was waiting for them, along with a full house. Though neither of them had any remaining family speak of – Donald's mother had succumbed to cancer the previous Spring, while Rachel's father had dropped suddenly in the middle of a hockey game with his friends from the firehouse, which had later been attributed to an unnoticed brain bleed sustained in a recent injury – Rachel had had a talent for making enough friends to fill a concert hall no matter where she went.

Many of those friends had been by recently, to the point where Lydecker had unhooked the phone and stopped answering the door, not wanting to hear any more condolences or words of pity. He just wanted to be alone with his wife.

Suddenly exhausted, he lay down on the couch, placed the picture beside him, and drifted into a fitful sleep.

It was the slightest of sounds that woke him. At first he thought it had been a bird fluttering its wings from its tiny nest in the unused chimney. Moving into the kitchen he flicked on the kettle, and rinsed out a cup that was in the sink. As he was waiting for the kettle to boil, he cast around for something to distract him from the sheet of Perspex that was serving as a temporary replacement to the pane of glass one the officers had suggested Rachel had been tossed forcefully into headfirst. He glanced through the other door that led into the hallway, and noticed a Christmassy red envelope lying by the unpainted new front door.

Walking into the hallway and picking up the envelope, he opened the door a little to see if the person who had delivered it was still around. Though a three-inch-thick layer of snow covered everything in sight, and a sharp cold instantly filled his lungs, a bright sun shone above, as if daring the snow to come again. The light stung his eyes, and he glanced quickly at the trail of footprints leading to and from the house and down the long driveway before shutting the door again. There was nobody in sight.

Before going back to the kitchen, he tossed the envelope in through the living room door, where it landed in the empty fruit bowl on the coffee table.

Coffee in hand, he moved back into the living room to the couch. He set the coffee down to cool a little, and picked up the envelope. Stencilled upon the front in a slightly lighter shade of red than the rest of the envelope was Santa Claus and a single reindeer. Inside was not a Christmas card, but a completely blank, folded sheet of white cardboard.

Lydecker felt the hairs on the back of his neck snap to attention. Barely breathing, he slowly flipped open the 'card', and cried out in horror.

Dark, terrified brown eyes stared pleadingly up at him from a bloodied, battered face. Her mouth was wide open in an attempt at a scream, which the single hand crushing her throat strangled before it could hit air.

Dropping the card as he attempted to rise, Lydecker fell to his knees after two steps, retching loudly and uncontrollably. Struggling to take a breath between the dry heaves that followed, he eventually forced himself up again, rushing to the back door, turning the key and dashing into the open air outside. He slumped to the snow-covered ground, clutching his heart and sobbing silently.

It wouldn't be until hours later, when he forced himself to glance once more at the 'card' as he handed it over to the police, that he would notice the bold red writing underneath the Polaroid:

**YOU**** KILLED HER**

* * *

_**Three Months Later**_

"'_Misguidance of Petty Officers'_; there's a good one. What the hell did you have them do?"

"Sent a couple of them to report to Walsh's office for new orders," Lydecker responded absently. "I just needed a minute at the computer without anybody looking over my shoulder."

"So this would be where '_Unauthorised Use of a Military Database_' comes into the story?" Taking a step forward, Turner pulled the file Lydecker was reading – the coroner's report on his wife's autopsy – from his hands and threw it onto the chair behind him. Continuing with the one he himself held, he continued to read aloud. "'_Trespassing'_, '_DUI'_; '_Disorderly Conduct'_ is down here twice.

"Jesus, Deck. There are easier ways to kill your career. If you wanted to get out of the Army, all you had to was ask Walsh for a blowjob. You'd be gone before you could blink. Why go for slow and painful?"

"So, am I done?" Lydecker asked unconcernedly. "Granted, this would be easier with certain resources at my disposal, but if I don't have to listen to the constant whining, I'll be happy to just find another way." He reached for the half-empty bottle of beer on the coffee table.

Turner knocked the bottle from his hand, sending it smashing into the wall. "I just spent the past _three_ _hours _trying to convince Walsh that you were worth trying to salvage, even though you're chalking up a longer list of infractions than the entire squad has between them, which we can now add AWOL to, since nobody's seen you in a week. He still insisted I bring the MP's with me. Don't make me call 'em in here."

"Anything you do here is entirely up to you, Colonel." Rising unsteadily, he walked past his C.O to retrieve the report, even though he'd been over it a hundred times. He also picked up another one, and Turner saw that it was the Police report. "But I'm pretty busy. Assuming you're _not_ calling the MP's, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me get back to this."

"Get back to what? There's nothing there. Coroner couldn't find squat. Police lab told you the blood sample from the knife didn't match to anything they had in the system. No prints. Nobody saw the guy."

"Well, according to this," Lydecker told him, indicating the second file, "they didn't get a chance to match the blood sample. Disappeared, along with the knife. I guess it just grew legs and walked right out of the lab, and apparently they felt I didn't need to know that."

"That happens," Turner said after a moment. "Sometimes they misplace evidence, put it the wrong box, or just plain lose it. It _shouldn't_ happen, but it does. You want to sue the Police Department, I'm sure you'll have a good case, but it doesn't mean there's some kind of conspiracy."

"Never said there was. But I can't give up on this just because they have."

"So what am I supposed to tell Walsh?"

Lydekcer shrugged. "Tell him I'll take that blowjob if it's still on offer."

"I think it's a little late for that. I gotta bring you in."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Dammit, Deck, don't be any dumber about this." He jerked his head to the window. "Those guys outside got their orders from Walsh, not from me. You give any trouble at all, they use whatever force _they_ deem necessary to bring you in and toss you in the Brig."

"Well, I really don't have time for that," Lydecker mused, "so I guess the best way to avoid dealing with them would be to just knock you out and go out the back."

* * *

_**Four Months Later**_

A few drifted quietly and quickly away the moment the meeting ended, but most hung back a bit, in small groups; some headed out for coffee or dinner, a one or two just needing somebody to talk to having alienated most of their friends and families.

Lydecker drained the dregs of his now cool coffee and sluggishly pulled his jacket on. As he made his way towards the door, he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and spun quickly around. Maybe a little too quickly. Karen jumped back a little, alarmed at his startled reaction.

Despite being quite pretty, and a good ten years younger than him, Karen seemed to have taken an interest in him from his first appearance at these meetings. Not wanting to be bothered, Lydecker had pretended not to notice, and when asked point blank if he'd like to get together some time, he'd rudely turned her down, but it seemed she wasn't easily dissuaded.

"So, they dropped the rest of the charges?" She said by way of greeting once she'd regained her composure. "That's great to hear."

"I'm out of the military," said Lydecker tonelessly, as if announcing he'd broken a cup. "They'll be happy never to hear my name again. But no lockup, which is a small miracle, considering."

"We're going out to dinner," Karen nodded towards three of her friends standing by the door, "to celebrate Brian's promotion. Feel like tagging along? You should be celebrating yourself, what with dodging prison time and all."

"I'm going to have to pass," Lydecker told her almost before she'd finished speaking.

Karen shrugged a little, clearly having not really expected a different answer. "Well, we'll be at _The Epicurean_ if you change your mind," she said. "See you soon either way, I guess." With that, she left with her friends.

Moments later, as Lydecker himself stepped outside, an unseasonably cold wind hit him head on, and he pulled his jacket around him and zipped it up. Just as he was setting off, a voice called quietly over his shoulder.

"Captain Lydecker?"

Standing by the door was a slim man a little taller than he, wearing a crisp, navy-blue suit. His clipped grey hair still allowed a few strands of blonde to keep up their tenancy, as did his Zappa-style moustache and goatee, which only narrowly avoided looking ridiculous. He looked like a caricature of an old-fashioned British imperial, though instead of a sword fastened to his belt, Lydecker noted a slight bulge under his jacket, indicating he carried a holstered pistol, and despite his cartoonish appearance, he struck Lydecker as not being the type of man who was ever anything but completely serious.

"No," Lydecker responded, turning his back on the man and setting off towards his car.

"Donald, then," came the voice from behind, as the other man set off behind him, making no effort to fall in step with him. His voice was raspy, with an accent Lydecker couldn't make out. "Or do you still prefer Michael?"

Lydecker stopped and turned, allowing the stranger to catch up. "Do I know you?"

"No. I was a friend of your mothers." He seemed to hesitate a little when using the word 'friend'. "I knew your father too, before she left him. He and I were _not_ friends."

"Why's that? My mom said he was a jerk, but in all those years she never really said more than that."

"Let's just say you can be glad you never met him, and even more pleased that you take after your mother." Looking him up and down, he added, "There doesn't seem to be a trace of him in you."

"Do you have a name?"

"I imagine everyone does," said the stranger with a shrug, but he didn't offer it. "I'm here to keep a promise to your mother. I told her that if she couldn't be here for you, that I'd look in on you every now and again, and offer a helping hand if it seemed you needed one."

"I don't."

"Really?" the older man scoffed. "After that little incident with your former commanding officer, AND the MP's, you're practically unemployable. Most people would be afraid of hiring somebody with your temper. Though I must say the Army was quite unsympathetic to your circumstances. You would think, in this day and age, that they would have made a better effort to help you, as opposed to simply abandoning you."

"Help means counselling, and I wasn't interested."

"Not a believer in the value of therapy? But you did agree to _this_," he pointed out, jerking his head towards the building where the meeting had taken place. "Perhaps you realised that the search for your wife's murderer might go somewhat more smoothly if you weren't soaked through and through with cheap whiskey and cheaper beer?

"Why not simply admit to facts? Whether by well-thought-out design or sheer dumb luck, there is no remaining evidence that could point to the man responsible, and that was if he could be found to begin with. There were no witnesses," he added, "and the only thing the police seem to be sure of is that whoever killed Rachel…"

"You don't say her name," Lydecker told him gruffly. "You didn't know her. I don't wanna hear you say her name."

"Very well," said the stranger after a moment. "The only thing they can be sure of is that whoever killed your wife had to be unusually strong, and likely built like a champion bodybuilder. Someone that size would have stood out, but those living nearby who had been out on the streets that day remember seeing nobody like this.

"In short, Donald, the chances of the man responsible being punished in this life are frustratingly close to nonexistent."

"So I should just forget about her?" Lydecker half-shouted.

"Of course not. Remembrance is vital. We may as well never live at all if we're not remembered. But it would be a poor testament to her memory if her husband were to degenerate into nothing but a broken old drunk, and waste his life in pursuit of a truth as elusive as a pot of leprechaun gold.

"As you say, I didn't know her. But I can imagine she would much prefer to see you pick up the remaining threads of your life, and give them meaning. I'm offering you the chance to do that."

"How's that?"

"I'm heading a project for the Department of Defence. On a large scale, what we're doing may in time effect almost all global markets, and have implications as profound in fields like medicine as in the more obvious military applications. What I need from you, however, is quite simple. You would be working directly with the test subjects in the program almost from infancy."

"Test subjects? What is this project, exactly?"

"A sort of next-generation military academy. The 'cadets' you will be working with are especially gifted. You will be in charge of every aspect of their training, from basic education to advanced military techniques and discipline."

Lydecker barked a humourless laugh. "You just said yourself that nobody in their right minds would give me a job, but you're offering to put me in charge of a bunch of kids?"

"You'd be surprised at how well they can handle themselves," the stranger told him. "If you like, I can take you to meet two of them now," he suggested. "Joshua and Isaac; they were in fact more like beta test subjects, and at this point I'm the only one who still works with them directly, but I think you'd find them quite interesting."

Lydecker was quiet for a moment as he tried to piece together what he'd been told. Years of rumours and almost daily news reports about military genetic experiments gave him a rough idea of what he was about to walk into, and though he found the thought intriguing, he couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive about the man in front of him.

"Assume I take the job," he said. "Do you really expect me to work for you without knowing your name?"

"I suppose not," the other man allowed with a shrug. He extended a rough, weathered hand. "Eric Sandeman."

* * *

_**Now**_

The door was three inches thick, dead-bolted, steel-reinforced. The one-way pane of glass was tougher than two suits of Kevlar. Lydecker stood watching through the glass as she began to stir, dark curlsfalling away from her olive-skinned face as her eyes budged open groggily.

Lydecker was about to go and let Sandeman know when the he heard the door behind him open, followed by the old man's footsteps, punctuated by the dulled tap of the now ever-present cane in his right hand.

"Is she awake?" he asked in his high, almost unearthly voice; a voice that still unsettled Lydecker more than he cared to admit.

"Just about."

Sandeman drew up alongside him, and glanced briefly through the glass before turning to Lydecker. "Is there something wrong?"

Lydecker didn't answer right away. "You should probably go in alone for now," he said finally. "Given our history, I doubt she'd be in much of a mood to listen to what you have to say if I'm in there."

"In the past twenty-four hours, she's been ambushed, shot twice in the chest, drugged, and locked in a coffin, and now she's waking up in a room which I imagine is rather too reminiscent of a Manticore lab for comfort," Sandeman reasoned. "Somehow, I can't imagine this conversation going very smoothly in the first place. I hardly see how your presence could make it much worse."

"Your funeral."

"I may be an old man, Donald, but I'm hardly to be lumped in with the infirm just yet."

"So you say, but you seem to be relying on that cane a lot more than you used to."

Sandeman ignored him. The bolts slid back automatically when he worked the handle on the door, and he pushed it open and stepped inside, Lydecker following hesitantly behind him.

The after-effects of the drugs seemed to vanish the moment she saw them. At one moment dizzily placing her feet on the floor by the bed, the next moment Max stood facing the two men as they stepped inside, her eyes wide in confusion and anger, fists clenched tightly.

"How do you feel?" Sandeman asked, as if not noticing her reaction to seeing him.

Max's eyes darted from Sandeman to Lydecker and back again, taking in the cane exactly like the one Joshua had found at the old house, the short white hair, and the tired grey eyes. He put her in mind of an ancient wolf, once the Alpha, who somehow had avoided being killed by his successor and had gone on to live much longer than Nature would usually have allowed. A pair of thin scars on his left cheek, along with the way he leaned so heavily on the cane suggested that the other wolves had certainly done their best to finish him off.

When it became apparent she didn't plan on answering, Sandeman spoke again. "Just to save time, allow me to clear something up. Out past those two doors, there's a flight of stairs on the right, leading down into the main hall. The front door is unlocked. One of the men in the garden can bring you to a private airfield and put you on a Cessna. You can be back in Seattle in a matter of hours, with no fear of Customs, Immigration, or any other troublesome formalities."

"Where the hell am I?" she demanded.

"Montreal." After a moment, he added, "Since you don't ask who I am, I assume you remember me, or have heard quite a bit about me from others."

"Your name's come up once or twice."

"Then we can get right to the point. Despite the unfortunate methods we were forced to employ to bring you here, I am in no way your enemy. I understand you and Joshua are friends. Has he ever given you reason to fear me? Or distrust me?"

Thinking about Joshua's mournful tones whenever he spoke about his 'father's' disappearance, Max suddenly felt ridiculous standing ready to attack the old man. She dropped her fists, and jerked her head towards Lydecker. "So what's _he_ doing here?"

"You should perhaps be more grateful that he is. If not for Donald, you wouldn't be alive today. Recently the Conclave dispatched a Phalanx team to eliminate you when you were seen visiting your friends. Fortunately, a team of my people were tracking you on Donald's orders, and annihilated your would-be assassins before they could even get close to you."

"And Gottlieb?"

"I recruited him after that little incident involving my dear son and the creature you called Kelpy," Sandeman told her. "For the past few years I've been gathering quite a collection of disenfranchised soldiers and agents; people who see in the appropriate shades of grey for what I need."

"You've been building an army?"

"I have perhaps six hundred men spread throughout the United States and Canada, some still in government employ…"

"Like Renfro."

"Yes. And many others who, despite not being in positions I can take advantage of, still have quite useful talents."

"Why do you need an army?"

"Why does anyone ever need an army?" Sandeman asked. "There's a war coming, and you, my dear, happen to be our most powerful weapon." He suddenly looked exhausted, and added, seemingly more to himself than to her or Lydecker, "Though at this point, I can't be sure you'll be enough."

* * *

**Next chapter coming soon. Please review.**


	5. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

_Dublin, Ireland_

Bright, flashing lights painted the night in brilliant blue, bringing neighbours to their doors and causing a couple of drunken passers-by to stop and stare for a time. The back doors of the yellow and green ambulance opened wide, and out hopped two men wheeling a gurney. They moved quickly inside the open door, and emerged a minute later, moving more slowly, gently bringing the old woman now occupying the gurney down the front steps, past the garden gate and into the back of the ambulance. Her husband followed, at first forgetting to shut the door behind him as the paramedics loaded her into the rig. A few watchers hung on their doorsteps for a short time after the ambulance pulled away, their expressions sombre as they exchanged perfunctory sad words.

The moment the last of the woken neighbours had disappeared back indoors, the door across the street from the elderly couple's home was quickly opened, and silently shut again as Ames stepped outside. Quickly glancing all around him at the neighbouring windows and the now empty street to be certain nobody would spot him, in record time he had dashed clear across the street and up the garden path, picked the lock of his in-laws' front door, and was inside with it shut behind him again.

Having no need for any form of light to pick through the gloom, he navigated the narrow, slightly cluttered hallway soundlessly, turning into the living room slash den and switching on the computer. It was ancient and obscenely obsolete, so Ames set about searching the rest of the house while he waited for it to start up.

He moved around the folded-out bed Margot had been confined to once her weakness had kept her from tackling the stairs. The whole thing made Ames want to vomit. Familiars, of course were far above the reach of _most_ human weaknesses, but those few to which a small fraction of their number did succumb, such as tended to strike in old age, were simply not tolerated. Any Familiar who found themselves falling prey to such pathetic human weaknesses would either take action themselves, or, lacking the decency to go quietly, would be dealt with directly. There was a time when even humans had more sense than to tolerate such a thing as the elderly or the ill – more simply, the weak – to weigh on a society in such a way. It was almost sad to think that the more base human society claimed to evolve, the further they strayed from the path any sensible race would adhere to.

The cabinet beside the bed contained nothing but pills, a couple of books and a hairbrush, and Ames, seeing that the computer was still struggling to get into gear, moved into the kitchen, which stank of the same disgusting pre-prepared microwave-boil-in-the-bag-piss-tasting readymeal crap Ames had forced himself to gorge on as part of the task of altering his appearance. He doubted Wendy's parents had eaten a single scrap of real food since Margot had fallen ill.

Beside the breadbin lay a bunch of open envelopes. Flicking through them quickly, he found nothing but bills, which he tossed aside, checking a nearby drawer and finding nothing but cutlery.

Back in the den, the old computer was finally, slowly cooperating. As with most home computers the only semblance of security was a password prompt which Ames bypassed by jabbing the _Escape_ key. The computer sluggishly connected to the internet, where the homepage was an e-mail server, and a password had been committed to the computer's automatic memory. He clicked on 'Sign In', and once into James' account, keyed in 'Michelle, Wendy' in the Search bar.

He went through the messages from his late wife first, starting with one that had arrived two days after Ray had been taken to Willoughby to be with his own kind. Only brief references were made to what had occurred, as clearly they had already discussed Wendy's version of events at length over the phone. Instead of the whole story, Ames noted, it seemed mention of Ames' unusual roots had been left out. Instead, she seemed to satisfy herself with as many variations on 'crazy' as she could fit into a single rant.

Her messages afterwards became less frequent, usually containing only short updates on her search and enquiries about her mother's health. The last simply read:

_'I think I've found him. I'm in Ohio. I met a woman last night from a small town just a little south from here, who swears blind she's seen Ray with a bunch of kids from a boarding school there. If it's true, I'll call you and Mom once I have him far from here._

_Tell Mom she'll see me again._

_Love, Wendy.'_

Ames allowed himself the briefest moment of pity for the promise Wendy had made and he had broken, then started scrolling quickly through her sister's communications, clicking on the only one received after Wendy's death.

_'The man who was helping Wendy has some friends of his helping us out. We're in New York, but we leave in the morning. I can't say where. Remember what we spoke about. I know how crazy it sounds, but I think it's true, or at least the people who had him believe it's true. Ray's acting a little strange, but I think in time he'll be okay. I just need to get him far away from these psychos. The people who are helping us said there aren't many places we can go, but they can make sure we stay hidden._

_I don't know if I'll see you guys again. I just hope you understand all of this. I have to protect my sister's son. Tell Mom I love her, and not to worry about us. Remember, if Ames gets in touch with you, tell him the truth: that you have no idea where I am. Don't talk to him about anything else. He has no reason to go anywhere near you. Don't give him one. I've told Tara the same._

_I'll be in touch as soon as it's safe. I miss and love you both. I'm sorry for all of this._

_Love, Michelle'_

Growling in annoyance, Ames knocked the chair over as he leapt angrily to his feet. Forsaking all thought of leaving no trace, he turned to a nearby desk and ripped the drawer out, upending the contents and tearing through them. Nothing. A set of drawers in a cabinet at the far wall. Nothing there either.

His frustration growing, he ran up the stairs to the master bedroom, tearing through small cabinets on each side of the bed, a dresser, and the wardrobes, finally putting his fist through the wall when he found nothing.

Back downstairs, his attention was drawn when an absent glimpse towards the sickbed spotted something peeking out from under one of the pillows. As he tossed the pillow aside and picked up the bundle of rubber-banded envelopes, it occurred to Ames that he should easily have noticed them before.

Despite his excitement as he confirmed that they were from Michelle and noticed the postmark from Bologna in Italy - which made sense as Michelle had attended the _Alma Mater Studorium_ and was fluent in Italian - a part of him had the clarity to wonder whether they had in fact been there before.

Though he had no opportunity to react when he felt the presence of another person in the room, immediately before he lost consciousness from a powerful blow to the head, he did have time to realise that the envelopes definitely _hadn't_ been there before.

* * *

Though soundproofed as far as normal people were concerned, the room didn't serve someone like Ames quite as well. The high-pitched whine, all of the jet-engine's roar that made it through the soundproofing to his ears, wasn't loud, but it was enough to wake him.

He waited patiently for his vision to readjust from the blow to the head and his unconsciousness, slowly becoming aware that the night was over. The black sky was no longer that of twilight, but of Irish weather. Unheard rain pelted against the window, obscuring the view outside to a mere few feet, but the barely audible whine of another set of jet engines, along with the simple, somewhat generic furnishings of the room told him he was at the airport hotel.

Anybody watching Ames sitting quietly on the bed, making no attempt the struggle against the wire that bound his hands and feet, or to fight the electrical tape over his mouth, might be forgiven for thinking him completely unconcerned with his plight, but although he certainly wasn't frightened, he was not a happy man.

His mood wasn't improved by the expression on the face of the man who emerged from the bathroom a moment later. A vastly superior sneer wasn't exactly well-suited to his square, plain face, but it _was_ better-suited to his companion, who just a second later entered from the hallway.

Neither man said a word, and Ames wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of struggling against his bonds for them to laugh at. After all, they knew what they were dealing with, being of his ilk, and would have made absolutely certain he was secure. The wire itself was industrial strength, as used in crane cables, and would cut his hands off before allowing him to free himself.

One of his captors – Ames knew neither man's name, having only met them once or twice, and never actually spoken to them – plucked a laptop from the bedside table and placed it in front of Ames. He started up a media program, and began to play a video from a DVD.

The scene began with a close-up of a woman's battered, bloody face. Even before the camera pulled back and refocused, Ames knew that the woman was his sister-in-law, Michelle.

One eye was shut tight beneath a mass of purple skin. Blood from her nose, now dried and caked all over the lower half of her face, had served to moisten the tape over her mouth, which now hung loosely from one cheek. As she opened her mouth, coughing and spluttering, unable to cover her mouth with both hands tied to the steel chair she sat in, Ames could see gaps in her teeth.

The camera panned left, and Ames' eyes widened in shock and anger. Tied to another chair immediately beside Michelle, Ames' son sat with tears streaming down his face. He struggled violently against his bonds, and another figure appeared onscreen, slapping him sharply with a backhand. A few droplets of blood trickled from Ray's nostril, and he stopped wriggling.

Again the camera pulled back, and Ames saw that the man in the video was the same man who was now leaning against the door of the room they held Ames in, an amused grin having now taken place of the sneer.

In the video, the man produced a hatchet he'd been holding behind his back. This time, Michelle joined Ray in the thrashing about, Ray trying to scream, Michelle succeeding.

Grabbing a fistful of Ray's hair, the man with the hatchet yanked his head back violently, and held him like this as he drew back the hatchet.

Ames joined in the struggling and screaming as the hatchet was swung.

* * *

**Next Chapter: The true identity of Sketchy's girlfriend is revealed, Otto Gottlieb is back in Seattle, and body-parts are dropping over the place. From the next chapter onwards, I'll have to kick the rating up to Mature. In the meantime, Please Review.**


	6. Chapter Four

**Timeline Note: **The events since the beginning of Chapter One (and continuing on now) all take place in the space of a single day. I'll leave a note when the story moves on to the next day.

* * *

The elevator doors opened slowly and noisily, and tried to close immediately. Melissa stood by laughing as Sketchy got his foot caught, struggling to yank himself free, and falling flat on his face when he did. Barely conscious after the continuous celebrations of the past day, he needed a little help getting to his feet, and a little more navigating the straight, empty corridor towards the door of his apartment.

Though it had only been published the day before, the article was already a hit; the subject of several talk-shows and quite a lot of news reports. The previous day, Sketchy had gone into the offices of _New World Weekly _to pick up his CD player, which he'd accidentally left in his desk drawer. He'd been the subject of many handshakes and backslaps, and his fingers had once again been crushed by Ben Mitchell, who, smiling as widely as everyone else, had unsettled Sketchy more than ever.

Since he'd left the _New World Weekly _office early the previous morning, his phone had been switched off, his pager left by the wayside, and the booze had flowed freely and without pause. Sketchy made a mental note to himself to investigate the fact that he was still able, more or less, to stand.

With a little effort, he managed to fit his key into the lock, and eventually figured out which way to turn it. Once inside, he stumbled a little again, but just about managed to stay upright with Melissa's help. She turned him around, propped him up against a wall, then fell against him heavily.

They stood like this for a minute or two, each one half-supporting the other. "I think a shower before bedtime would be a good idea," Melissa suggested.

Sketchy glanced towards the kitchen area, at the clock on the wall. "It's two o'clock in the afternoon," he pointed out logically, slurring a little.

"Yeah," came the groggy response. "Henceforth known as bedtime. C'mon." She kissed him lightly on the cheek and made her way towards the bathroom.

Sketchy was about to follow, but stopped suddenly, noticing something on the kitchen table. He was too far away to see what it was, and his gut told him he probably didn't want to know. He took a slow step towards the kitchen, and was willing himself to take another, when the front door splintered, cracked, then fell clean off its hinges, crashing to the ground at his feet.

"Don't move!" cried one of four armed men in urban assault gear Sketchy saw standing in the hallway, as one of the others rushed him. In one swift movement, Sketchy's legs were kicked out from under him, his arm was twisted behind his back, and Sketchy was flat on his face again.

Two of the attackers moved towards the bathroom, one of them receiving a sharp kick to the ribs as Melissa appeared from behind the doorway to the bedroom, all of a sudden seeming wide awake and very sober. By the time he'd hit the ground, Melissa had the pistol he'd been holding pressed against his companion's left eye. Her other hand gripped the barrel of the second man's shotgun, forcing it down until it pointed directly at his foot.

"Seattle P.D!" roared the same guy who'd yelled at Sketchy when they'd knocked the door down. He took aim at Melissa, a small red dot appearing on her cheek. "Drop it and let him go!"

Melissa glanced sidelong at the guy who seemed to be in charge for a moment, before letting go of the shotgun and handing the pistol back to the man who was picking himself up off the floor. "Traditionally, it helps if you announce yourselves _before _you start pointing guns at people," she spat sullenly. She hardly paid any mind to the guy she'd knocked down when he grabbed her and dragged her roughly towards the kitchen. The guy who held Sketchy to the floor picked him up and took him into the kitchen as well, forcing him into a chair by the table. The pair Melissa had attacked both stood by the doorway, eyeing her suspiciously.

Sweating like a pig, and suddenly feeling as sober as Melissa looked, Sketchy cleared his throat and addressed the lead officer. "Um, what exactly is that all about, fellas?" he asked as calmly as he could manage.

"Calvin Theodore?" A fifth and sixth cop had entered the apartment, dressed in plain clothes. The speaker was a short, fleshy guy with a red face. His partner, a redheaded woman around the same height, though in much better shape, moved around the table, standing behind Melissa, who was staring at something on the table.

Sketchy nodded silently, and the guy who'd asked his name continued. "You work part-time at _New World Weekly_?" Another nod from Sketchy. "Deborah Litvack, your editor; seen her lately?"

"For like a minute, yesterday morning," Sketchy said when he found his voice again. "I went in to pick something up from my desk drawer."

"Would you be able to recognise something of hers?" asked the woman standing behind Melissa.

"I don't…what are you talking about?"

"Those, for example?"

Sketchy looked towards the table where she nodded, suddenly remembering that he'd noticed something before the cops had kicked his door down. Melissa had barely taken her eyes off the sight on the table since being dragged into the room, but her expression was far from frightened or disgusted; she simply looked mildly surprised. Sketchy thought that the alcohol must have been blocking the part of her brain that allowed her to really comprehend what she was seeing – and wished it had done the same for him - because the moment _he_ saw what was sitting on his kitchen table, he leapt up from the chair, shoved his way past the female detective, and made it to the sink just in time to greet his old friends Huey and Buck.

Donning a pair of latex gloves, the chubby cop picked up the pair of human eyeballs and placed them in a clear plastic baggy. "Now I got the whole collection," he announced proudly. "Her body was found sitting in her car on the side of the road near Udub, and her head was up on a shelf in her office, next to the family photos. Anonymous tip said we'd find the rest of her here."

Melissa shot a contemptuous look at the cop for his attitude, while Sketchy continued leaning over the sink, reviewing everything he'd had to eat and drink over the past twenty-four hours.

* * *

"I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with this!" Sketchy squealed for the third time. An untouched cup of coffee sat on the table in front of him, but since his sojourn at the kitchen sink, he'd never felt more alert or clear-headed in his life.

"Then you need to explain how your bosses' eyes made their way out of her skull and onto your kitchen table," the redhead explained patiently. "You don't strike me as a psycho, but you need to talk to us or you could be in a lot of trouble. Terrorism's a pretty serious charge, in case you didn't know."

"TERRORISM?!"

The redhead dropped a file on the table in front of him. "Found in Litvack's office."

Sketchy didn't even need to open it to know what was in the file. It was the same one Litvack had shown him the day he'd brought her the information about the Familiars; the dossier that identified Logan as Eyes Only.

"He's not a terrorist," he stated flatly, sounding much braver than he felt. "He's just a journalist."

"Who rails against the government and the military, incites public unrest at every opportunity, and openly supports subversive groups like the S1W…"

"And the Transgenics," Sketchy snapped. "That's what this is really about, right? You know I didn't do anything to Litvack, and even you can't be thick enough not to get that whoever called in the tip was the real killer, and he _wanted_ you to find that file. You shut down Eyes Only, you shut down Terminal City's biggest supporter. You're being played!"

"You could be right," shrugged the redhead unconcernedly, "but now that we have this, we can't exactly ignore it. You gonna tell us where Logan Cale is, or do I start going through a list of potential cellmates for you?"

Sketchy breathed deeply, dropped his gaze to the floor. Melissa's hand slipped around his, squeezing lightly. Suddenly felt as brave as he was trying to act. However, before he could speak again, a voice at the door ordered one of the guys in assault gear to stand aside, and a man in a simple black suit entered the room. Just as suddenly as Sketchy had found his courage, he now wanted to vomit again.

"Mr Theodore, don't say another word," said the newcomer. He glanced at Chubby and Red in turn, and apparently decided Red was in charge. "Special Agent Gottlieb, F.B.I," he announced, flashing an I.D. "We'll be taking over from here. This case is Federal jurisdiction, from the moment you found that file in your murder victim's office. I can only assume that your failure to call us was a momentary oversight," he added, his eyes narrowing.

If Otto Gottlieb didn't cut a very intimidating figure, his companion certainly did. Looking like an upright bear uncomfortably squashed into enough human skin to cover three normal people, he stood at seven feet tall, was almost too broad across the chest to walk through the doorway without turning sideways, and had arms thicker than holiday roasts. Whatever reply Red had for Gottlieb was lost the moment she laid eyes on Sparks.

Otto gestured towards Sketchy and Melissa to stand up, and Sparks moved away from the door to let them out. They were in the hallway outside before the cops recovered their senses. "Hold it!" Chubby cried, rushing out to stop them at the elevator. "You can't just take over and haul _our_ suspects away without any kind of clearance."

"Who do you wanna talk to first," Sparks queried, "the DA or the Mayor?" He took a phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

"I'll get these two in the car and call in," Otto told his partner, who nodded lightly, not taking his eyes off the two cops, who now both looked very uncomfortable, having apparently expected the usual resistance and condescendence the F.B.I was famous for, and not knowing what to do when met instead with courtesy. Ushering Sketchy and Melissa into the elevator, Otto hit the button for street level.

"What the hell is going on here?" Sketchy demanded the moment the elevator doors had closed.

Otto glanced at him, clearly surprised at the tone as he remembered his last encounter with a drunken, terrified Sketchy. "Well," he began, "you're not under arrest for starters, so how about you drop the attitude?"

Melissa spoke up before Sketchy could respond. "I thought you and White were DOD, not FBI," she said pointedly. "That's what they were saying in the news after you were on that Eyes Only broadcast."

"These days I'm neither; and hopefully those two won't push it and Sparks will be able to walk away before they realise what's happened."

"Then who the hell are you?"

"A friend of a friend," he stated flatly. "That's all you need to…"

He was cut off as the elevator doors chugged open and a fist caught him between the eyes.

No sooner had Otto hit the ground than Melissa was floored with a sweeping kick, followed up by the sole of Ben Mitchell's shoe stomping on her head. Sketchy joined them both on the floor less than a second later.

* * *

Melissa and Gottlieb were both already awake by the time Sketchy came around.

All three were bound and gagged on the dirt floor. Mitchell seemed to have thrown this together in a hurry, and hadn't enough rope for all three; Melissa's hands were bound with the cord from a telephone.

It took Sketchy a moment to realise that they were in the basement of the old abandoned building in Sector Two which had, until recently, been home to the burial ground he had come to investigate for his story. Mitchell stood by the pit that had housed the remains, speaking quietly into his cell phone. Sketchy couldn't hear what he was saying, and his expression was unreadable.

Turning to his fellow captives, he saw that both of them were casting their eyes about them, apparently looking for something that might help them escape, though both seemed quite calm considering their situation. Melissa noticed that Sketchy had woken up, and her eyes widened enquiringly, by which Sketchy assumed she was asking if he was okay. He nodded, and posed the same silent question, receiving a shrug and a bashful grin through the gag in response, as if she were annoyed with herself for winding up like this.

Otto had begun fingering at the knot near his wrists. If he thought that with Mitchell preoccupied on the phone and his hands out of their captor's line of sight, he was wrong. Barely glancing towards them, Mitchell raised a silenced pistol and fired into the dirt by Gottlieb's head. Otto grunted and turned his head from where the bullet hit, a cut appearing on his cheek trickling blood.

Nobody moved again until Mitchell approached them, placing the phone back in his pocket. He stood over Otto, using his foot to turn him onto his back.

"Where's Sandeman?" he demanded, to which Gottlieb responded with a badly muffled "Who?" through the gag.

Mitchell jabbed him sharply with his foot. "I know you're working for him, and our people just got a look at a sketch the cops are about to release from witnesses at the Farmer's Market from yesterday, so I know you brought him '452. Where are they?" he asked, drawing his pistol once again.

Otto's wordless response was easily enough interpreted despite the gag. Mitchell fired a round at his leg, grazing his thigh. Otto winced and groaned loudly, but stopped himself quickly. His eyes narrowed in anger as he stared silently up at Mitchell.

Mitchell raised the gun once more, but this time he levelled it at Sketchy's head. He didn't ask the question again. For a moment he simply held the gun there, saying nothing, waiting for Gottlieb to try and speak up. When Otto made no sound, his finger began to slowly squeeze the trigger.

The gun discharged as Melissa kicked it from his hand. The bulled shattered the glass on the guardhouse door, and the gun flew through the air, bounced into the far corner of the room and disappeared under the wreckage of a half-fallen wall.

The wire that had been used to bind her hands and feet tossed aside, Melissa charged Mitchell head-on. Off-guard and off-balance, the Familiar stumbled backwards, before across the room as she followed up her tackle with a powerful dropkick, skidding across the dirt floor and falling into the burial pit.

No sooner had they heard the thud as he hit the ground out of sight than Melissa had untied Sketchy's hands and was working on his feet.

"There are more of them coming. He was calling for people to come and collect you for interrogation," she told Otto as she moved to untie him once Sketchy was loose. "Go to Terminal City," she ordered, "and ask for Mole. Tell him what's going on."

"What the hell IS going on?" Sketchy screeched.

Mitchell was up, and already scrambling back over the edge of the pit. Covered in dust and dirt, with blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, he looked a like a vampire who'd just forced his way out of his coffin after being buried.

"GO!" 'Melissa' roared.

Sketchy slowly allowed himself to be moved, as Otto quickly checked the his wound to be sure it wasn't serious, then hurried off, pulling Sketchy along behind him. Mitchell leapt to his feet and moved to stop them, but 'Melissa' attacked again.

"Well," she announced after the pair had disappeared into the wrecked building's main hallway, "that's a guy who'll _never_ speak to me again!" She stepped around Mitchell's fist as he swung at her, roaring like a lunatic. "I'm just gonna go ahead and blame you for that, since – well, since you're here."

"Y'know, we haven't even been properly introduced," she added. Stepping towards while deflecting another punch, she caught him under the arm and flipped him head over heels, landing him flat on his back. "Hi!" she announced cheerfully. "I'm Jondy."


	7. Chapter Five

The Familiar held a razor-sharp, double-edged knife, which he thrust at Jondy's throat. Barely dodging the blade, she caught the back of his arm, sweeping at his feet with her leg as she twisted his hand. The knife slipped from his grip as he fell, but Mitchell lost no time in delivering an immensely powerful kick to her gut.

The blow nearly brought her to her knees, but instead Mitchell launched himself at her as, propelling her onto her back. He cast about for the blade but couldn't see it, so instead opted for simple strangulation, but before his fingers could close around her throat, she kicked him once in the back of the head with her right foot, then took advantage of his momentary disorientation by planting her left flat on his face, crushing his nose with a satisfying crunch and forcing him off of her.

Finally having a chance to catch her breath after the kick, Jondy coughed and wheezed a little as she clambered to her feet, then, spotting the lost knife at the same time as Mitchell, kicked it into the pit as she flung her elbow back, catching him just under the ribcage. The ability to block out pain didn't negate the need for breath in his lungs, and the winded Familiar swung blindly as he stumbled off-balance once again.

"You wanna break for coffee?" Jondy asked politely. "I'm getting kind of bored."

His furious scowl doing nothing to improve on a smashed and bloody face, Mitchell launched at her with a vicious onslaught of fists and feet, but his superior strength counted for nothing with a target he couldn't hit. Dodging and deflecting his every blow, Jondy took easy advantage of her opponent's temper, not once missing an opportunity to dance quickly around his attacks and land one of her own.

Each hit she landed would easily have felled a human opponent all by itself, but Mitchell kept coming, through cracked ribs, kidney punches that would have taken down a bear, and knocks to the head so powerful there should have been a flock of brightly coloured twittering birds flitting around his head. His total lack of composure made him easy to hit, but after ten straight minutes, Jondy began to wonder if he'd fall down before she wore her fists down to the bone.

Mitchell's companions were very accommodating. They announced their arrival outside the building by dialling his mobile phone, giving Jondy all the warning she needed. Dashing for the stairwell at the back of the building, she sped upstairs with Mitchell in hot pursuit.

* * *

Not long after the pair had disappeared, two more Familiars entered the burial site, and upon finding nobody in sight and spatters of blood all around, ran upstairs towards the distant sounds of a continuing scuffle. They went past the empty second and third floors, and were on the fourth, headed towards the fifth, when the sound of breaking glass, followed by a heavy pounding on metal and the startled yells of people on the street, led them to a nearby window.

Down in the street below, Ben Mitchell, either unconscious or dead, lay face-up on the roof of the van the pair of Familiars had been driving. A blond girl had managed to wedge open the side door, apparently damaged when Mitchell had landed on top of the van, and now pulled him down off the roof and tossed him into the back.

"The keys are in the ignition," one of the Familiars said to his companion, as the girl hopped into the front of the van.

The pair hopped through the window, one after the other. One went in a single jump from the fourth floor window to the roof of the van. The impact led to a sharp _snap_ as she landed unevenly on her feet, and she was thrown off as the van began to speed away. Her companion, having first dropped to a ledge halfway down from the window, yanked her to her feet.

"Your leg?"

"Broken ankle," she responded absently, hobbling into the middle of the road. A station wagon screeched to a halt less than a foot from her. The driver's expression of shock at the near-miss and relief of being able to stop on time turned to stupid surprise and fear as the Familiar drew her pistol and shot him between the eyes.

Her companion moved to the driver's seat and pulled the dead occupant out of the vehicle, dropping him unceremoniously on the road. Once inside, he reached up and grabbed a small photograph that was attached to the mirror, portraying the now dead driver with a pair of kids at an amusement park, and threw it out onto the ground beside the dead man. A few stunned onlookers, all ducking behind cars and mailboxes and any other cover they could find, watched in horror as the Familiars sped away from the scene.

As they took off, the woman grabbed her right foot and twisted it sharply. She gave it an experimental flex, and was apparently satisfied. Flicking her phone open, she dialled in a number, and received an answer on the first ring. "This is Morgan," she announced the man on the other end of the line. "We have a problem."

* * *

Having finally taken Mitchell down with a thick wooden beam to the back of the head, Jondy had removed the unconscious man's phone from his pocket before tossing him out the window.

All at once driving, dialling, keeping a lookout for cops or other pursuit and stealing glances over her shoulder to make sure Mitchell wasn't waking up anytime soon, she waited impatiently for an answer on the other end of the line.

"Mole here," came the eventual greeting, just as Jondy noticed a blue wagon weaving rapidly around the traffic behind her.

"This is Jondy. Logan said to call you if I was coming to Terminal City."

"You're on your way now?"

"Yeah, but I got a problem. A pair of Familiars trying to drive up my ass, and another one knocked out in the back of the van I'm driving. I won't be able to use the tunnel entrance."

She waited as Mole muttered a few choice oaths which matched her own sentiments exactly. "What direction are you coming from?"

"Hang on a second." Slamming her foot down on the accelerator, she covered her eyes with one hand as she crashed through a barrier, the impact shattering what had been left of the windscreen after Mitchell's sky-dive. "I just passed the checkpoint from Sector Two into One," she announced, glancing behind her to see that the cops at the checkpoint were shooting not at her, but at the Familiars following her. "I'll be cutting into Seven in five minutes. I oughta reach Terminal City in about ten."

"You gonna drive right through the crowds?"

"Only if they're in my way when I get there."

Mole hesitated slightly, then said, "I'll deal with it. When you get here you need to keep driving until you're inside one of the buildings and out of sight, or the National Guard will shred you to pieces."

"Right. See you in ten."

Just before she hung up, she caught a snatch of something Mole was saying. "Um, Alec? Something I probably should've mentioned earlier…"

* * *

National Guard Corporal Julian Richards was in love with his job. The constant drills and exhausting physical training gave him frequent opportunity to show that he could be better than anyone else. It was an opportunity he never failed to take full advantage of, with top fitness reports since his first day and a track record for the base assault course that nobody had come close to. He loved the fact that the Guard had put him through college, asking only that he spend two years afterwards doing what he did best and enjoyed thoroughly. And, as he had discovered on his last trip to Korea, to his great surprise, and what some would consider a worrying lack of concern, he had a profound fondness for the pink mist of an exploding skull, seen through the scope of his rifle.

Having studied Communications, Cryptography and Linguistics in college, Richards was self-tutored in four languages, currently studying Cantonese, and had an uncanny knack for deciphering complicated codes in without a computer to aid him. With his application to become a fully-fledged Army regular simply waiting the formality of final approval, he was considered to be on the fast track to Black Ops. As far as Richards was concerned, the fast track wasn't fast enough.

Of the hundred or so Guardsmen posted between the Terminal City perimeter fences and the nearest checkpoint, nineteen were people Richards had served with since graduating college; three snipers like him, in separate buildings to provide as complete a kill-zone as possible; two 'heavies', big guys armed with big machine guns, one of whom sat in the same apartment as Richards, an M249 SAW perched on the sill like Julian's rifle; and a pair of seven-man assault teams, sitting in an armoured bus not far outside the fence. Unlike Richards and the other watchers occupying windows around the perimeter, the guys in the bus were pretty much at their leisure; equipped, armed, and ready to spring to action in a second, but probably playing poker or reading until something happened or they were relieved in a few hours time.

It had been the same every day for the past ten, since Richards and his unit had been posted here the day after the bombing; twelve hours sitting in this same window, rifle to his shoulder, scanning the crowd for potential threats. On their third day, Richards had spotted a guy moving up and down through the crowd, from one end of the fence to the other, over and over for no apparent reason. When the guy had reached into his inner jacket for a pack of cigarettes, Richards had spotted the pistol holstered under his shoulder. A few quick words into his radio, and the man had been quietly removed from the scene by the police. No other incidents in ten days.

Since the day after the bombing and the Mayor's announcement that the National Guard were adopting a policy of 'shoot first, kill to avoid having to ask questions', the crowds gathered outside Terminal City had been fairly peaceful, until just a few hours ago, when the media had announced that at least one of the Transgenics who had apparently been killed in the bombing was in fact alive and well. The news had sparked what looked like the beginning of a full-scale riot, but the situation had calmed considerably when the bus had opened up to allow the teams inside to exit. A police lieutenant had spoken briefly through a loudspeaker to 'subtly' remind the demonstrators of the Mayor's announcement, and upon having the assault teams pointed out to them, as well as a mention of an exaggerated amount of snipers in the surrounding buildings, the approaching tsunami placard-holding, furious (and apparently unemployed, as they hardly ever seemed to leave) malcontents went back to just chanting and screaming instead.

This was nowhere near the most boring detail Julian Richards had been assigned, but after ten days, totalling one hundred and twenty hours of sitting in a window scanning the crowd, he was beginning to wonder if there was really any point to his being here. Even the guy with the gun had been released the same day he'd been pulled from the crowd, after he'd turned out to be a DOD agent, there to meet a colleague who was assessing the necessity of the extra Guardsmen.

Just as Richards began to wonder, not for the first time, how this agent had come to conclusion that they were in fact necessary, when all they had done even now was stand there and look scary, depriving the cops and other sentries of what would probably been a welcome opportunity to break the tedium by breaking a few bones, he noticed a few of the demonstrators were suddenly pointing towards the fences. Richards followed their hands with the scope of his rifle. From among the neglected, rusting, crumbling buildings, a group of shapes emerged from the shadows. Six Transgenics, all armed, entered the open space between the buildings and the fences, just outside the potential range of any objects the crowds might toss at them from over the fence.

Just as Richards was about to radio in, a slow, deep voice came over the frequency they were sharing with the police. "This is Clemente. We've received a communication from Terminal City. Two inbound vehicles approaching the fence, coming in from Sector One, East Checkpoint B. First vehicle is a white van, and has been designated a friendly unit, under attack by the second vehicle, a blue station wagon."

"Friendly to _them,_" said Ted Wallace, the guy sitting in the window next to Richards, his machine gun trained on the Transgenics who'd appeared before them. "What does that mean for us?" He didn't say this into his radio, but the cop had apparently already checked for an answer.

"All National Guard sentries and police officer are to clear the civilians away from the fences along the approach vectors of the vehicles," Clemente continued. "Snipers are to engage the second vehicle _only_. Heavy weapons and assault teams are to stand alert, but do not engage without orders. ETA is…two minutes."

"We're taking orders from a _cop_?" cried Wallace.

"Politicians put him in charge after that thing with that guy White," Richards reminded him.

"Who, apparently is part of some wacko cult who sound pretty much exactly like the Transgenics!"

"But it was this guy White who was causing all the trouble. All any of the Transgenics have really done so far is look ugly and lie about a couple of 'em being dead," said Richards as he realised that second supposedly dead victim was among those in the courtyard below. An instant later, he'd disappeared from sight, crouching behind a couple of barrels. The others had vanished too, spreading out and ducking behind whatever was handy.

The argument was cut off by the sudden sound of gunfire. Leaning forwards, Richards sighted the approaching vehicles as they sped around the corner at the side of the apartment building he was in, the station wagon only a second the van, which had had surely seen muchbetter days. Both car and van made a beeline directly for the fence, where the last few demonstrators had finally decided it was a good idea to allow themselves to be pulled aside.

The other snipers took their cues from Richards, who was acknowledged as being the best among them. He waited until the van had crashed through the chain-link fence into the courtyard, then took aim, not at the hand that was protruding from the passenger window firing a pistol at the van, but at the front tyre on the same side.

He popped the tyre with one shot, and whatever control the driver might have maintained was lost an instant later, when three more shots were fired in almost perfect unison by the other snipers, taking out the back one. The car spun wildly out of control, the side with the burst tyres lifting off the ground. It slammed at an odd angle into an old dumpster, and began spinning sideways through the air. It bounced and continued to spin over and over, completing three full flips before finally coming to a stop in the upright position. By this time, the van had disappeared, lost behind one of the old buildings.

At first it seemed both driver and passenger were out for the count. Down in the courtyard, the Transgenics began a slow approach, when suddenly the occupants sprang to life. The woman in the passenger seat was first, and all at once the four snipers fired, as in one movement, she flung the door open and sprang from the seat, diving for cover at the back of the car. It made no difference that her new position wouldn't have protected her from additional sniper fire as it would have from the Transgenics. Richards tagged her right in the head, silently noting that he now had twenty-one shots, twenty kills. The other three all caught her in the chest, high-powered rifles just like the one Richards had used to remove the back of her skull leaving quite a messy corpse flopping to the ground.

In the second it took the snipers to take the woman out, the guy in the driver's seat had come to, left his seat and vanished. Richards didn't know whether any of the Transgenics had gotten a shot off, but at least they'd seen where he went; all six were bearing down on the dumpster the car had hit. Richards sought out the second target – and found him just in time to see him raise a UMP and aim it in his direction.

* * *

"OPEN FIRE!"

A second after the short burst of shots from the unseen Familiar, the National Guard went nuts, aiming not only for the Familiar as he again darted past Alec's field of vision, but at the Transgenics, too. It was one of the guy's leading the assault teams holding just outside the smashed fence who gave the order, and nobody wasted an instant in following it.

Lin was immediately to Alec's right and they both ducked for cover behind the smashed car; he caught her as she fell, pulling her out of the Guardsmen's line of sight. She yelled soundlessly through gritted teeth, having been hit no less than four times with fire from an assault rifle. Alec could see right away that two of the rounds had been stopped by her body armour, but one had punched through to what was most likely a kidney shot, while the last had strayed lower, hitting her full on in the hip.

"Hang on!" Removing the Kevlar vest as quickly yet gently as possible, he checked the wound; the bullet must have found a chink in the armour, as it had gone right through Lin to get caught in the back of the vest. He checked the angle of the exit wound, and assessed that it might missed the kidney after all, with a little luck. Lin seemed to agree, as when she started using words again, the words she chose were: "Sadistic pricks! Why the _hip_, of all places?!"

"If it makes you feel better, I think they were trying to kill us," said Alec sardonically, pressing his hands down of the wound. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" he yelled over his shoulder, at the same time hearing Mole cry out, "What the hell did we do this time?"

"One of their people is dead," Joshua called out. "Heard it on the radio before they started shooting." Zack was crouched down behind the wall beside to him, ready to leap out and return fire as soon as he got an opening. Alec gave a slight head-shake, which was met with eyes widened in a 'Why the hell not?' expression, but he stayed where he was, lowering the weapon ever-so-slightly.

"Cease fire!" The call was repeated along down the line of Guardsmen until finally the last of them stopped shooting. Alec chanced a quick look around the back of the car, and was glad to see that nobody tried to blow his head off. Clementè was standing next to the armoured bus, berating the man who had given the order to fire. Alec couldn't make out what he was saying, but judging by the uncomfortable movements of the other Guardsmen, it was far from being a friendly conversation.

Alec quickly signalled the others, all of whom sprang from where they'd ducked for cover, weapons at the ready. One of the Guardsmen cried out in alarm, but Clementè yelled at him to shut up, then said something else to his C.O., to which both assault teams responded by taking up positions for covering fire. It seemed the cop was the only guy there who was still thinking about the second Familiar. While the others began to seek him out, Alec called over his radio for a stretcher. A pair of X-5s came into view immediately, hurrying towards him, when suddenly the one holding the stretcher dropped it and reached for his gun instead.

Nobody managed to get a shot off as the Familiar appeared – from where, Alec had no idea - and tackled him from behind, driving his face into the concrete. His teeth rattled from the blow, and the entire left side of his face went numb. He heard Lin yell something incomprehensible beside him, and as he tried to push himself up to take a swing at the Familiar, he was hit again, his face once again squished between his attacker's hand and the ground.

No sooner had he heard the _click _of the hammer on his attacker's pistol, than the weight holding him down was gone. Alec turned to see Joshua standing beside him, and the Familiar flying through the air, landing with a _thud_ and a _splash_ in a puddle twelve feet away. The instant he landed, Mole was standing over him, blasting him twice in the chest with the shotgun. "Problem solved," he grunted in satisfaction.

The medics were gently hoisting a very angry Lin onto the stretcher and carrying her away, as Joshua extended a hand to hoist Alec to his feet as Mole strode over, shotgun slung back on his shoulder. "Keep getting smacked around like this, those pretty-boy looks of yours are gonna be beyond salvage," Mole commented, while Alec held a sleeve to his bloody face. "You're gonna wind up lookin' like me."

"What now?" Joshua asked, nodding towards Clementè and the Guardsmen.

"Definitely not a good day for public relations," said Alec absently.

"Well, you're the one who went on National Television and declared open season on anyone who got in the way of finding Max," Mole pointed out. "Not sure we can blame those guys for being a little on-edge, 'specially when one of their guys gets his head blown off."

"I'll talk to them. You get the Familiar from the van secured, and tell this Jondy girl not to wander off. Where's Zack?"

"Followed the medics back inside."

"I'll need to talk to him, too. And you," he told Mole curtly.

Mole shrugged lightly. "Figured as much."

"Joshua, can you go to the House to meet Sketchy and Gottlieb when they get here? I don't know what Otto's story is, but he's been playing some kind of game behind our backs. Take his gun away if he's carrying one, and have him wait in the Command Centre." Joshua nodded and hurried off, Mole heading slowly in the same direction.

As Alec made his way towards the hole the van had made in the perimeter fence, he glanced over his shoulder, where a team of six X-4s were spread out on the nearby roofs, all armed with some of the few assault rifles those in Terminal City had managed to procure – even though they had arrangements with a couple of small dealers, who of course had no idea they were selling weapons to Transgenics, there was very little cash to buy with, and over sixty per cent of those living in the biohazard zone were unarmed.

As good with their rifles as the team on the rooftops were, Alec hadn't wanted to risk them firing into the courtyard for fear of friendly fire if the situation with the Familiars had required being dealt with in close quarters, and had therefore ordered them to stay out of sight. He also hadn't wanted to chance panicking the National Guard. _So much for that idea_, he grumbled silently.

They'd made absolutely zero progress in the search for Max. The guys sent out to Pike Street to try and get a good description – or better yet, a snapshot or video feed – of the people who'd grabbed her, had come back shaking their heads. Lydecker, for all intents and purposes, was a ghost. And Logan still hadn't produced any results from his analysis of the cameras from the Sector Checkpoints.

As if one major crisis wasn't enough, Alec now found himself dealing with more disasters than he could count on one hand. Off all the people outside of Terminal City, he think of maybe five who actually cared about what had happened to Max, whereas everybody else was just calling for blood because they'd lied about her death. _And mine_, he reminded himself, feeling thousands of eyes boring into him as he approached the fence. Logan had declared war on the Familiars, and had apparently not felt any need to clue anyone in on his plans. Terminal City now had to deal with a Familiar prisoner, and worry about a possible retaliation or rescue effort. Max's amnesiac, quite-possibly-psychopathic 'brother' had shown up demanding answers, and now Gottlieb was apparently running his own game, too. If for no other reason than to not have to deal with all this crap, he had to find Max and bring her home _now_.

_No other reason?_ a snickering voice from nowhere asked._ Are you sure?_

_**Shut up!**_

_Aw, come on, _the voice goaded. _It might help take a little of that load off your back, clear your head a little. Why don't just admit why you REALLY want her back?_

His reverie was interrupted by Clementè, who was suddenly standing in front of him. "Is there any chance you're going to explain any of this to me?" he asked. He didn't seem angry, but clearly Ramon was feeling a lot of pressure from his bosses, and the National Guard looked far from happy to be taking orders from a police detective.

"I already explained why we lied about Max," Alec told him. "As for what just happened here, I take it you heard about my buddy Sketchy."

"Yeah, I caught _both_ of your media debuts," said Clementè, screwing up his face. "I won't be sitting comfortably for a month after the reaming I got from the mayor this morning. Wanted to know why I hadn't warned him about any of this. I told him 'I'm sorry sir, I didn't know. Nobody inside Terminal City seems to be telling me a goddamned thing.'"

Alec jerked his head away from the eavesdropping Guardsmen, and walked back towards the car the Familiars had been driving. Clementè ordered the soldiers to stay where they were, and followed.

"I didn't know about the article," Alec assured him. "Neither did Max. The reason she went out of Terminal City yesterday was to talk to Eyes Only."

"Cale?"

"Yeah. But somebody was tracking her. Our guys who went to the market found her bike before the cops got there, and brought it back. There was a tracer on it."

"How's that possible?"

"Donald Lydecker; the guy who used to run Manticore," Alec reminded him as the cop tried to connect the name to what he'd read in Sketchy's article. "We thought he was dead until the day of the bombing. He called Logan, said he had information he'd only give to Max. Somebody working for him could've tagged her bike while they were meeting."

"What would he want with her?"

"I don't know. Bargaining chip, maybe, to help him get in good with his former employers again. But with the timing – the very day Sketchy's article came out – there's another possibility. He could be working for Sandeman."

"That's the guy who created all of you?"

Alec nodded. "I don't know what his story is. None of us have seen him since we were all kids back at Manticore, but Joshua and Max have been trying to find him for a while, get some answers on a few things."

"And all the rest of the stuff in the magazine… this cult."

"There's two of 'em right there," said Alec, casually pointing out the corpses nearby. "The truth as far as we know it is what you read. There's more, but it's not really my place to say."

"Something to do with their crusade to wipe out humanity?" Again, Alec nodded in confirmation, impressed with how well Clementè seemed to be taking all of this.

"I don't know how much I'm going to be able to help you from here on out," the detective said with a heavy sigh. "Your little stunt on the TV this morning upset a lot of the wrong people, and things were complicated enough before we knew about superhuman end-of-the-world cults living among us. The mayor was talking about severing ties to Terminal City; pulling the Guard out, and let whatever's going to happen, happen. I don't know if he's actually that stupid. He's got to know how it'll end if anyone tries attacking this place."

"If we get a lead on Max… I don't know if I can trust Logan. If you'd asked me before yesterday, I would've said he'd do anything for Max, whatever the consequences. But I'm pretty sure his little side-project is the reason this is happening. He never said a word to any of us about it because he knew Max wouldn't have let him dangle a friend of hers in front of these guys as bait. He nearly got Sketchy killed…"

"And he _did_ get Deborah Litvack killed. Your friends' editor," Clementè added, seeing the blank look on Alec's face. "She was decapitated, and from what the guys who were on the scene told me, she went through a hell of a lot before whoever got to her finished her off."

"Tell you what," Alec suggested. "The van that drove in here had an unconscious Familiar in the back; most likely the same guy who killed this Litvack. Apparently these guys don't feel pain, but we're gonna test that theory. Whoever was pulling his strings would have to be another Familiar. If we get a name, I'll call you. Maybe you'll be able to do some digging on your end, confirm the details. After that, me and mine clean up."

"You're talking about conspiracy to commit murder," Clementè warned.

"I'm talking about getting to the top of the food chain and making some changes. If there's any truth to their endgame, we need to know more about these guys. How many there are, who they are, and what they're gonna do."

For a long time, neither man said anything. Clementè paced up and down, his eyes to the ground. The same guys who'd brought Lin inside to get patched up returned to pick up the bodies of the Familiars. There were more than a couple of guys inside Terminal City who'd been boning up on the study of genetics since escaping Manticore; blood samples would be taken for analysis. The didn't have the equipment for that kind of work, but maybe Sam Carr could help arrange access to the labs at Metro Medical for one or two guys who could pass for Ordinaries. The bodies would then be incinerated.

It was almost a full five minutes before Clementè stopped pacing. He seemed very unsure of what he was about to say, and his own surprise at the words that came out of his mouth couldn't have been clearer. "You get a name, call me." He walked quickly towards the fence, as if worried he might change his mind if he didn't move quickly enough.

* * *

**Please review. **

**Chapter Six:** Sandeman, Jondy and Zack tell their stories.


	8. Chapter Six

**Author's Note: It's fairly safe to assume that the 'science' behind Sandeman's secret work as laid out in this story wouldn't hold up under the scrutiny of a six-year-old with his first microscope. I've gone over a few revisions of the idea to make sure that it makes sense and follows a logical train of thought - it is, after all, a MAJOR plot-point, so I've really tried to keep it plausible and consistent. Hopefully it will serve that purpose well, but in case anybody's wondering, my actual knowledge of genetics is non-existent. _"This isn't my regular line of work. I'm making it up as I go." _**

* * *

_**Montreal**_

As they exited the room in which she'd awoken, Max saw that they weren't in a warehouse or factory as she'd assumed, but a mansion. "Not bad for a guy who's on the lam from a bunch of superhuman psychos," she commented, taking in the varnished, intricately carved wooden pillars and brightly coloured murals.

Sandeman didn't respond to her opinion of the house. "Not long after yourself and the other X-5s escaped from Manticore, my son – he still went by Alain Sandeman at this time – paid me a visit in the middle of the night," he lectured. "The Conclave had tolerated my existence after I'd broken from Manticore, even allowing me to keep my younger son with me, though many had called for his death."

"Why would they want CJ dead? He may be nuts, but he's pretty harmless."

"Because they found out what I'd done." They descended a spiral staircase, the old man moving slowly but steadily despite his lame leg. "You're familiar with the initiation ritual involving the serpent blood? For centuries, my people have believed that in order for us to thrive, ordinary humans could not be allowed to live. There is a legend to this effect, which I for one believe was invented simply to provide the illusion of some divine will or great destiny."

"The Coming."

"How much have you heard about it?"

"That's it. Just the name, and that it's major bad news for anyone who's not a Familiar.

"Well, then," he told her, "you know about as much as any Familiar. The story is purposefully vague, given, as I say, that it is a total fabrication."

"So, there's no Apocalypse around the corner after all," Max mused. "After all this tension, that's kind of a let-down."

"Well, don't be disappointed just yet," said Lydecker. "Turns out, these guys are nothing if not resourceful."

"How's that?"

"They've become tired of waiting." Stopping at a large, reinforced door, Sandeman keyed in a six-digit code on a nearby pad, and held the door aloft for Max and Lydecker to enter. "Genetic research provided the Conclave with a new option – to create the Apocalypse they've been preaching for so long.

"Despite the fact that I was considered by some to be rather troublesome, questioning the necessity of gaining control of the earth by stepping over the corpses of mankind, I was also thought to be something of an intellectual prodigy." He said it as if he would have preferred to have the I.Q. of a gerbil. "I was instructed to devote myself to the study of genetics, to determine the viability of using such research to develop a weapon that could ensure the total destruction of the humans inhabiting the earth without harming my own people. The Conclave saw only a chance to take what they saw as rightfully theirs. I, however, saw a different opportunity; a chance to force my people to find a middle ground.

"The obvious choice for their plans and for my own was the snake blood. Almost since the beginning of time, the blood of certain serpents had been known by our kind to provide people of a certain genetic disposition with an almost indestructible immune system. People who lacked these traits died a rather painful death. My idea was simple. However, the properties of the snake blood which cause these events have become exceedingly rare. These days, barely enough is being found to sustain a population of Familiars, with no thought of using it as a weapon.

"What I needed to do was find a way to synthesize the formula within the blood, mass produce it and find a way to turn it into a viable weapon, while at the same time finding a way to replicate the proper genetic traits for the formula to act as it does with Familiars."

"You were gonna give them their weapon, while at the system rendering it useless?"

"And Christopher was one of my earliest successes. I'd been secretly testing his blood against samples from his brother and myself. Had I not tampered with his genome, he never would have survived the ritual."

"And that's why they kicked you out of their club."

"Yes. Before departing Manticore, I destroyed all evidence that I had also been carrying out similar experiments on the Transgenics, trying to create a perfect defence against the toxin. Not knowing what to look for, many were happy to assume I had only been looking for a way to save my son.

"There were some, of course, who thought it wise to err on the side of caution. Manticore came dangerously close to being destroyed after I left. In the end, however the program was allowed to continue under new leadership, as was the research that had stemmed from it. I, however, was banished. They allowed Christopher to go with me, but Alain opted to stay with them. He stood before the Conclave and proclaimed that he had no father. This was in 2006, not long after a careless remark from Christopher led the Conclave to finding out what I had done when he was younger."

He paused a moment, leaning heavily against a stainless steel counter. The anger and sadness seemed to weigh on him like the world on Atlas' shoulders. Giving him a moment to pull himself together, Max took the opportunity to examine the room they were in. It was a large, high-ceilinged lab, with four rows of steel tables like the one Sandeman stood against. Microscopes, computers and stacks of file folders were dotted around the room, and along the walls at either side, labelled cabinets noted the various contents; a large assortment of chemicals and apparatus. Max once again made note of how, for a man on the run, Sandeman seemed to have no problem getting the any kind of tech he needed.

At the far end of the room, a row of refrigerators with glass doors were packed with vials of blood and other liquids. Max considered taking a closer look, but Sandeman began speaking again. "The next time I saw my eldest son after my exile, was three years later," he said heavily. "Not long after you and your siblings escaped, the same people who had originally been calling for the destruction of Manticore now began playing on the notion that some of you may seek me out. Alain _happily_ volunteered for the mission to assassinate me." His knuckles were white as chalk as his grip tightened on the cane. "I survived. My wife, Marissa - Christopher's mother, for whom I had first defied Familiar tradition, if not law, by refusing to kill her when Christopher was born - did not. And I was forced to flee, leaving my youngest son at the mercies of people who hated the mere fact that he was alive."

* * *

_**Seattle**_

Muted footage of the brief carnage outside was being replayed on every channel of the mountain of old televisions piled up in the far corner of the Command Centre. Scanning the screens, automatically reading the lips of a couple of newscasters as their faces replaced the feeds from outside the perimeter fence, Alec was surprised to note more than one of the reporters correctly guess that the two corpses plucked from the courtyard had been Familiars. Until now, he'd been wondering how many people would actually believed the story – even Clemente's easy acceptance of the tale had caught Alec off-guard, despite everything else the detective had been witness to since the day he'd arrived outside Jam Pony.

Sketchy and Gottlieb had arrived while he was outside. Otto was sitting on a stool, the leg of his pants torn wide in order for him to clean a scratch of a gunshot. Zack, Jondy, Mole and Joshua all stood nearby; Mole held his shotgun in the crook of his arm, both he and Joshua occasionally glancing in Gottlieb's direction. For his part, Otto seemed totally unconcerned with the fact that his life seemed to be hanging on a fairly thin thread.

Alec made sure he was in full view of the group as he sat at an untended computer and pulled up the video footage from the marketplace. Sure enough, as soon as he saw the image of the man standing over Max with the shotgun, there was no doubt. The man on the screen had his back to the camera; their attempts to get another angle on the scene having turned up nothing, but even from behind, it was clear. Alec dragged the cursor back, bringing up the shot of Max right after she'd taken the shot in the shoulder; the look of shock and rage as she saw the man who'd shot her. Over his shoulder, he heard a very cheerful Mole asking Gottlieb if he knew any good prayers. Otto ignored him.

Alec stood up and approached the group. Sketchy was standing a little apart from the rest of them, staring out a doorway at nothing in particular, trying very hard to ignore Jondy, who stood beside him, speaking in an anxious whisper. Jondy actually looked as if she might fall to pieces if he didn't respond in some way, but he just stood there, his anger etched all over his face, refusing to look at her. Alec doubted that Sketchy's mood would improve once he knew the whole story, and doubted that he himself would be very happy once it was told.

Zack watched Jondy intently, a confused look on his face, as if he recognised her but was surprised to find out she actually existed, as opposed to being just a picture in his mind.

When Alec got to them, Jondy turned reluctantly from Sketchy and moved closer to the rest of the group. Sketchy stayed where he was, but his head turned a little, to hear what was being said.

"Looks like everybody has a story to tell," said Alec in a would-be carefree voice. "Why don't you go first?"

Jondy gave a furtive look over her shoulder before speaking. "I was one of the twelve who escaped in '09," she began. "Moved around a lot, then settled in Frisco five years ago. Zack tracked me down there after about two years, gave me a number for a message service he'd set up in case any of us ever got into trouble, but I never needed it." Zack shifted his stance a little when she mentioned him, and his eyes glassed over a little as he tried to recall the memory, but he said nothing. "I worked a lot of odd jobs with no paperwork involved; barmaid, teaching kids self-defence at a couple of local schools; paid under the table for my apartment. I was able to keep a pretty low profile.

"When the news about Manticore broke, I thought about taking off. Guy I'd been dating for a couple of months started looking at me funny, especially after the shooting at the checkpoint. He never said anything, but he was wondering about my barcode. Then they started talking about the X-series. I went to his place from work, got there just when the story broke. He pulled a gun on me. Not an ideal way to end things," she shrugged, "but it wasn't much of a relationship to begin with. By the time he woke up in the emergency room, I'd destroyed every photo that had me in it, taken my number off his phone, wiped the place down, and cleaned out my place too. I was outside the city by the time a neighbour called me to say the cops had kicked my door in and were asking a whole bunch of questions. When I got to Seattle, I found an empty squat in Sector Six, and kept my head down. Figured I could always come here if I had to, but I decided to stay outside unless I got into trouble."

"How'd you wind up working with Logan?" Alec interrupted.

"When you guys were locked up inside Jam Pony, I joined the crowds outside; I watched it all go down. When you tried to leave the first time, I spotted the snipers, but Logan reacted first. I had no idea who he was, but I knew he wasn't a Transgenic. Then after the whole thing with that chameleon guy…"

"Kelpy," Joshua provided.

"I figured it was time to make myself useful, and I thought I could be a hell of lot more useful out there, once I knew what the game plan was. Given everything that had gone before, it was easy to figure that the guy from the Jam Pony siege was either Eyes Only or someone who worked for him, so I decided to see if I could track him down.

"It was pretty easy in the end. I bought an ID from a guy at the DA's office; that served as an all access pass to the police precincts. I went to the one that guy Clemente worked at, hung around until I saw him walk away from his desk and head for the bathroom. His phone was still on his desk, so I just memorized the numbers for every call made and received over the couple of days since the broadcast about Kelpy, then went to the nearest payphone and started dialling each one. One of 'em was Logan."

Out of the corner of his eye, Alec noticed Zack twitch a little at the mention of Logan, then shut his eyes tight and inhale deeply, as if trying to block out a loud noise.

"As soon as he spoke I knew it was him," Jondy continued. "I told him who I was, and that I wanted to help out. He was pretty happy to hear it. He told me he'd been working with Max, but now she was pretty much stuck in Terminal City, along with every other Transgenic he had a line on."

She paused and glanced again at Sketchy. He didn't look quite as angry since she'd mentioned what happened in San Francisco, but he still wouldn't look at her. Mole made as to nudge her to continue the story, but Alec shook his head, and they waited a moment for her to begin again.

"Logan had had the idea of using another source to put out the story about the Familiars since he lost his equipment when the DOD stormed his apartment. By the time I found him he was up and running again, but he figured it was still a good idea. The plan was to follow their efforts to track him down through the _New World Weekly _reports. That way, maybe he could get a look at who was calling the shots from above, either by tracking the guys who'd be tracking Sketchy, or grabbing them for interrogation. But it was too risky; there was no way to keep Sketchy safe if the Familiars got pissed and tried to use him to send a message."

"And then you showed up," Alec added. Jondy nodded, staring at her feet. Alec was more than a little thrown by her attitude. This was a girl who'd given her last boyfriend a cranium crack, and gone head to head with a Familiar twice her size and beaten him to a pulp, and now she couldn't even look anyone in the eye because she was afraid she'd upset Sketchy and his friends.

As if only just realising all eyes were on her – Mole was rolling his incredulously – she kept on talking. "My job was to tail Sketchy, and see who else took an interest once the story was in play. Turned out there'd been a Familiar working at _New World Weekly _since they started reporting on Manticore. He called in a couple of Familiars to follow him; I called Logan, who had an old cop friend send someone to follow _them_. I had to stick with Sketchy at all times, but it was tricky, in case the Familiars spotted me hanging around wherever he was. I needed to get closer without raising suspicion. The Familiars would have had a copy of the Manticore database from White, but Logan had it too. He broke into the DOD network to get a copy, and there was no picture they could match to me. The most recent picture of me was from before the '09 escape, and my twin was listed as having been killed in a training exercise less than a year later, so them seeing me with him was no problem; until they had reason to think otherwise, they would've figured I was a nobody."

"Well, it worked," Alec remarked angrily, looking across the Command Centre. Bound, bloody and gagged, Mitchell was propped up against a pillar he'd been tied to. His eyes were rapidly opening and closing, and he shook his head a little as he began to join the waking world again. One of his armed guards, an X-5 who called himself Castor, looked enquiringly at Alec, who shook his head and said, "Not yet." He'd get to Mitchell later. Castor used his elbow to put the Familiar back to sleep.

"It didn't work as well it was meant to," Jondy told him. "I called Logan while you were outside to see if the guys tailing the Familiars had had any luck since I last spoke to him. Yesterday morning, when the article came out, there was only one Familiar following him. I don't know where the other was, but ever since they started tailing her, it was just the one - it took a while to arrange for someone who'd be able to do a good job following these guys. From the time these guys started tailing her, the Familiar never once broke pursuit. Until yesterday morning, when the magazine article was released.

"It's fair to guess she got a call to report in. And we _have_ to guess, because they lost track of her. So now, _that_'s our only lead," she said, indicating Mitchell.

"We'll get started on him pretty soon, but he'll be tough to break," Alec pointed out.

"Drugs might help," Mole suggested. "Only thing a physical interrogation's gonna do is make a mess. Psychotropic drugs and mind-play's the way to go. A hypnotic would be helpful, but we don't have any here. I'm guessing the drugs might be easier to get a hold of."

"I'll talk to Sam Carr," Alec said. "I gotta ask him about another favour, too." Turning to Jondy again, he demanded, "Why weren't we told about any of this?"

"Because there was nothing any of you could do from inside Terminal City, and Logan knew Max would be against it."

"That's called common sense," Alec spat, furious. "I thought Logan was supposed to be smart, and we were learning tactics and espionage at the same age any normal kid is in the first grade. There were ten thousand ways this could have gone wrong, and it did. This jackass grabbed Max," he hissed, glaring at Gottlieb, who began to speak, but Mole punched him, and he fell from the chair, coughing and clutching his stomach. "The woman who ran _New World Weekly_ got her head ripped off," he reminded her, "and if not for a lot of good luck today, you could have gotten yourself, Sketchy, and a whole bunch of us killed, just so Logan could take a shot at identifying one or two Familiars, if that!"

Suddenly noticing that Sketchy was no longer standing in the doorway, he moved and took a look outside, and saw him walk around a corner by a nearby building, headed towards the house. "He's gonna be stuck here for a while. Staying in Terminal City itself isn't safe for him, but he'll be alright in the house – the contamination levels are safe out there. Go check if he needs anything. We got some small stores of food in another building; Joshua can show you where."

The pair left, Jondy walking just a little bit behind Joshua. Of the four Transgenics who had heard Jondy's story, Joshua seemed to be the only one who wasn't actually angry at her and Logan, though certainly he was terrified for Max. In the past, Alec would have put it down to Joshua's childlike desire to see the good side of everyone he met – he'd even befriended Alec easily, despite Alec's attempt to kill him so he could save himself from White.

But lately, Joshua had been forced to grow up quickly and roughly; he spoke less, went off alone by himself around the deserted areas of the biohazard zone, and had removed his painting materials from the common area where most people hung out. He still painted a lot, but he did so alone, and after his initial enthusiasm at the idea of having his paintings shipped out to Rita's gallery, he'd begun simply pushing his completed works somewhere out of sight.

Alec had known exactly what was going through Joshua's head as Jondy relayed her story; that any plan that could get them closer to tearing down his love's murderer, his brother's tormentor, and all of their along kind with them, was worth almost any risk.

It was thinking like this that had made Max's abduction even harder on Joshua than it would have been before. Annie's murder had hit him like a fist squeezing his heart, and for a horrible moment, when Max had stopped him from killing White, Alec had feared Joshua might even turn on Max if that was what it took to have his revenge. Now there was McKinley, too; the man who'd ordered Isaac's tongue cut out simply because he didn't want to listen to him crying for his father. Day and night in the week since he'd heard this, he'd been thinking of nothing but revenge, hoping for something, anything, that might bring retribution sooner rather than later. Now his wish may very well be on the verge of coming through. The Familiars had been pushed into action, and Max may well have been among the first casualties.

Alec had tried speaking to him, to tell him he was certain it wasn't the Familiars who had her. The problem was that he wasn't certain. He suspected Lydecker or the government, even hoped for such a culprit, because either of them came with a better chance that Max was still alive. He glanced at Otto Gottlieb, who was back in the chair, waiting patiently, and still with an annoying lack of apparent concern for his well-being, to be questioned. He turned to Mole, who began speaking the moment Jondy was out of earshot.

"I always figured living with the Ordinaries for so long softened up those kids too much," Mole said contemptuously. "Sure, she did okay in a fight, but that whole little girl in trouble thing, too shit-scared to look at anyone? I actually thought she was gonna cry!"

"That's what happens when you get too attached," Zack lectured, as if he were reading from a rule book. "You lose your objectivity, then your common sense. It's downhill from there."

"For someone who was getting so attached, she didn't have much trouble dangling Sketchy like a worm on a hook," Alec commented. "There's an old freezer in the Advanced Recombinant Genetics building," he told Mole. "Steel walls, heavy door, no light. Lock him in it," he ordered, pointing to Mitchell. "Four guards, round the clock. They don't open the door under any circumstance. We'll wait to see if Sam can get us the drugs before we start on him. How did you rate in interrogation?"

"Full marks across the board," he boasted. "Lotta hard-asses in Iraq when we were looking for Saddam. You think one look at me woulda made most guys tell you absolutely anything you wanted to know, but I had to get pretty creative a lot of the time."

"It was never my speciality," Alec admitted. "You'll be in charge of getting him to talk."

"Right."

Mole began to cross to where Mitchell was tied up, but Alec put a hand on his shoulder. He dropped his voice, certain that even Gottlieb, barely three feet away, had any idea what he was saying. "Logan doesn't give orders around here." Although it was scarcely a whisper, and his totally impassive, his words were delivered with the weight of any drill sergeant on a tirade. "Nobody goes their own way. Until the day comes when we don't have to look at the world outside that fence as enemy territory, we're at war, and you don't run a war by democracy. There's command and compliance; orders and obedience.

"I know you were pretty much running things before Max showed up. You've got your way of doing things, and it's a pretty popular way. It also would've gotten a lot of us killed before today if we'd gone your way at Jam Pony, or after we got back from that mess. This is a military command. It's not _your_ command. Until now we haven't had a clear chain of command. That was a mistake. So let's be clear. Max is in charge here; and until and unless we get her back, it's me. You do what you're ordered to do, by me. Nothing else."

Mole's face was completely unreadable as he listened, and when Alec was done, neither of them said anything for what seemed to Alec like a very long time. They simply stared at each other, with expressions that would have been entirely blank if not for their eyes, staring purposefully at each other.

Alec knew he was taking a huge chance. He liked Mole, but his methods of command were a disaster waiting to happen. Unfortunately, a lot of others in Terminal City felt as Mole did. They thought any idea of negotiation was a waste of time. This was not, after all, how they'd come up. They were warriors, born and bred, and to those who hadn't spent much time in the real world, there were only two options that made any real sense; all out war, and tactical retreat, neither of which would have ended well. If Mole wouldn't accept Alec's authority, Alec may well find himself on the wrong side of a very dangerous equation, as they both knew very well.

It was therefore to Alec's great relief when Mole gave a short nod, followed by a single word. "Understood." Hefting Mitchell over his shoulder, Mole carried him away, Castor and the other guard following.

Surprisingly, Zack, who had immediately launched into a flurry of questions which came out a lot like demands when he'd first shown up, had been almost completely silent since the moment the mayhem of Jondy's arrival had begun, waiting patiently for his turn to be heard. Knowing that he would of course continue to wait given the situation, Alec turned to Gottlieb. "Let's hear it." He took a step to the right, ensuring that the computer screen which showed Max as she was shot was in clear view. "Convince me not to make Mole a very happy guy by letting him have you, too. You saw how enthusiastic he is about torture."

Otto smirked at him, then turned around to a desk behind him, where the contents of his pockets had been left. His gun had been taken away by Mitchell, before he'd regained consciousness in the old house, and there hadn't been opportunity to grab it before he ran. Instead he'd grabbed his phone, which had been lying nearby. He picked it up again now, and handed it to Alec. "Last number dialled," he said.

* * *

_**Montreal**_

"So you never got to complete your perfect cure for the poison?" Max asked.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Sandeman told her. "All of those created at Manticore have the _potential_ to survive the toxin, much like any Familiar, though it's not certain. Some of those from the earlier generations may not survive – at that time, my research was very experimental."

"So if Joshua or Mole were infected, they'd die."

"I'm rather certain Joshua would survive. With his genetic makeup, I spliced countless genes that were considered responsible for resistance to natural poisons and environmental toxins. Like the others he would fall ill. But his odds of survival are higher than those of any other who came before the X-5s.

"As for total immunity, it was while I was working on the X-5s that I finally found what I was looking for. There are two genetic markers in the blood of a Familiar which, from what I can tell, do not appear anywhere else in nature. I've tested more animals, plants, fish, birds and insects than I can remember, and neither one of these two markers can be found anywhere but in a Familiar."

"What are they?"

Sandeman turned to the row of tables behind him, and switched on the screen of a desktop computer. The computer itself was already running; he rapidly clacked a few keys, and a brightly coloured image appeared onscreen. It looked like it had pulled from some kind of hospital scanner.

"This is the heart of a juvenile Familiar; one who hasn't been exposed to the poison yet. Nothing out of the ordinary at first glance. But when you look more closely," he lectured, clicking at a toolbar at the top of the screen, magnifying the image over one hundred times, "you see this."

What she was looking at, Max had no idea. She'd read a whole bunch of medical texts and genetics treatises in the years since her escape, and remembered most of what she'd seen better than most experts on the various subjects, but this looked to Max like it could have been a smudge from somebody touching the screen. Even magnified as much as it was, it was smaller than the nail on her pinkie – a grayish splodge of nothing.

Sandeman apparently hadn't expected her to have any idea what it was, and it seemed he enjoyed his role as professor lecturing student. "This is the only evidence of a young Familiar's abnormal genetic makeup that can be seen without vigorously studying the base pairs of the subject," he told her.

"What is it?"

"A build-up of a unique protein. Whether or not an initiate will survive the poison from the serpent's blood has nothing to do with ritual, faith, strength, or any other factor the Conclave holds in such high esteem. It's all about the amount of this protein amassed in the heart wall of the initiate. If there is a sufficient amount of the protein present, it will mutate when it comes into contact with the toxins in the blood, in the space of hours, will go from this," – he called up a new image on the computer – "into this."

The new mark was much larger, not needing to be magnified in order to be seen clearly. It was the size of a nickel now, a darker, more solid shade of grey than before. "It looks like a tumour," Lydecker remarked. Max realised that Lydecker must not have seen any of this before, and began to wonder what his involvement with Sandeman was; what deals had been made between the pair.

"It is," the older man confirmed, "though obviously not a cancerous mass. This tumour, formed by a massive chemical reaction between the protein and the poison, takes shape more rapidly than is considered possible by modern day medical research, and begins secreting thousands of antibodies, many of which I've yet to see the corresponding disease to match. The subject develops immunities to cancer, HIV, numerous diseases involving the heart, brain, blood and immune system; the list goes on. The poison carried within the snake's blood is neutralized, and a massive genetic mutation begins and is completed in less than twelve hours."

"So you found a way to synthesize the genetic markers that create this protein, and combine it with human blood?"

"Not synthesize," he corrected. "I could never find a synthetic formula that even showed the slightest potential for what I needed. Into your own DNA I spliced the marker's harvested from Alain's blood. Most of the other Transgenics were made immune through more of a trial and error process than anything else. Before I was able to devise a method that would allow me to harvest the protein itself, a process which went through many failures before I finally figured it out, I'd been synthesizing the new antibodies created by the tumour. I was never able to determine which of these particular antibodies actually corresponded to the poison itself. I can only assume it was some combination of numerous antibodies that cured the poison, but I never found the correct combination.

"Once I had what I'd been looking for, I chose two subjects in the X-5 generation; yourself and one other. The genetic coding that allowed production of the protein, along with other traits I'd found the key to earlier on, resulted in a new form of the protein; one which could bind itself to a normal human heart, granting ordinary people with total, not partial, immunity to the virus."

"Why only two of us? You said yourself there was hardly any need to worry that another Familiar would have noticed what you were doing."

"But if I'd immunized the entire squadron, there was a chance that another scientist on the project would have noticed. They wouldn't have known what they were seeing, but they would have reported the anomaly. If that had happened, the Conclave would have known about it almost right away, from their own people involved in the administrative side of the project," Sandeman reasoned. "While I was at Manticore, I personally assumed responsibility for yourself and your counterpart. By this I mean that any experimentation or medical work involving either of you was done only by myself. Nobody found this particularly unusual. I'd done the same with previous generations; selected two or three children who I would personally work with, while the bulk of the generation were generally tended to by the others on the project, supervised by myself, though without my direct involvement.

"This way, it was easy for me to make certain that nobody noticed the difference between the two of you and the others of your generation. If I could have done this with only one of you, I would have, for the sake of even greater caution, but for what I had planned it was necessary that there be two of you."

"Why?" Max queried, confused. "Who's the other one?"

"It doesn't really matter now," Sandeman responded dejectedly. "With the amount of time and effort I put into the experiments I was carrying out to be sure, not only that I'd succeeded, but that the process could be safely carried over into ordinary humans, granting them the same immunity, my involvement with the X-6 generation was supervisory only. I explained this lack of involvement to my superiors in the Conclave by telling them I thought I'd made a breakthrough in my efforts to create a weapon from the snake's blood, and produced falsified reports to this effect. They in turn mollified the government officials in charge of the Manticore project. I was left alone to continue my work.

"Once I'd confirmed that I had what I needed, I was considering creating an insurance policy of sorts in case anything happened to either or both of you. Since it seemed my work to this date had not aroused any suspicions, I was going to copy the same markers I'd coded into the pair of you, and splice them into your X-7 counterparts. At this time the plans for the X-7 generation were fairly rudimentary, and no actual work had begun, but I knew it would. However, before I could continue my work, what I'd done to Christopher was discovered, and I was exiled."

He fell silent, his eyes dropping to the floor. It seemed as if he'd drifted off, forgotten that he'd been talking to anybody. Once again, his proud, ancient beast demeanour evaporated to be replaced by a ruined old man. It felt almost perverse to look at, as if this side of him was something he meant to hide from everybody, including himself. As Max regarded him, it occurred to her that this was a gross invasion of privacy, as if she were peering directly into his mind and seeing every embarrassing secret he'd ever kept, every crippling fear or heart-wrenching sorrow he'd ever felt. She felt sick to her stomach.

She forced herself to pull her eyes away, to give the old man a chance to recover himself. Lydecker had also averted his eyes, apparently struck by the same sensation as Max. Again Max's mind came back to the thought; _Why are you here? What's this all about for you?_

Her eyes snapped back to Sandeman as he drew himself up and began speaking again. "So there were only two of you. My work could not be continued without access to the sort of facilities I simply could not access alone; the process I'd come up with so that the protein could be introduced into the system of a normal human being could not be duplicated without starting with an embryonic or foetal Transgenic as I had done with you.

"I had a plan that would have circumvented the power of the Familiars without a single battle ever being fought. But like I said, for this I needed two of you. The other is dead now; and there is only one way the human race will survive, and it's not certain at that. Millions, perhaps billions will die. And the Conclave may get their Apocalypse after all."

Max's confusion had reached a peak, and the questions began to flow like a waterfall. "How could it make a difference if there were two of us? Who was the other one?" she asked again. She gave no pause for the old man to answer but began to ask another question, when she was cut off by a ringing phone.

Lydecker reached into his pocked and looked at the screen of the phone. "It's Gottlieb," he told Sandeman before answering. He flipped the phone open. "Lydecker," he announced, then took on a confused expression. "Who is this?"

Max found herself grinning ear-to-ear when she heard the furious voice on the other end. Lydecker exchanged a glance with Sandeman before turning to her and handing her the phone, shrugging. "I think he wants to talk to you."

Max took the phone and turned away from them before speaking into it. "Hey, Alec. Are you having as fun a day as I am?"

* * *

**Author's Note (2): Whew! Officially the longest single chapter I've ever written. Sleepy-time now. Hope you all enjoyed. More coming soon. Please review.**


	9. Chapter Seven

_**Seattle**_

"Are you sure she's okay?" The question came from three different voices at once.

Alec, Zack, Jondy, Joshua and Sketchy stood in the old house outside the perimeter. Before Zack and Alec arrived, along with Gottlieb, who had left after a few quick words with Alec, Joshua had been making himself scarce, putting away some of the things he and Jondy had brought for Sketchy while he'd be staying in the house. Jondy had been trying to speak to Sketchy, but it seemed he wasn't interested in listening.

Now they all stood in the dusty, sparsely furnished living room. Jondy seemed to have gotten a hold of herself, but looked vaguely annoyed at the fact that Sketchy refused to acknowledge her presence in the room, and it had been somewhat timidly that Joshua had appeared, as if worried the situation might erupt. Now all three bore looks of cautious enthusiasm, each of them waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"She's fine," Alec assured them. "The attack, the abduction, it was all staged by Lydecker to sneak her out of the country. Obviously, they never meant for it to wind up all over the news. They'd planned to follow her until she came to a stop, hopefully some place not too crowded, then tranq her and drag her out of there without attracting too much attention, but she saw them coming, and all hell broke loose. She guessed it was Lydecker behind it, but figured he must have been back in with his old bosses. Max was very much opposed to becoming a government lab rat, and apparently she made her feelings clear. She attacked first, some of Gottlieb's guys started shooting, the rest is the beginning of my headache of epic proportions," he grinned humourlessly.

"So who _is_ Lydecker working for?" Jondy asked.

"Sandeman."

Joshua, usually perpetually hunched over, stood up so straight and so suddenly that his head broke a light bracket above him. He didn't seem to notice. "Father?!" he exclaimed squeakily.

"Yeah. Apparently he and Max have a lot to talk about. It looks likes this Familiar Apocalypse is something they had Sandeman prepare for them – reverse engineering a poison they use in their rituals, turning into a viable bio-weapon, then taking out pretty much the whole world with it. But since day one he was screwing them. At the same time he was trying to make the weapon, he was working on a way to render it harmless. Max, the prophecy, the runes on her skin, Sandeman did it all; part of his plan to take down the Familiars."

"What runes?" Zack demanded, a little more aggressively than Alec would have expected. He knew that neither he nor Sketchy had known about this before now, and was unsure if Logan had already filled Jondy in on what he knew.

Before he could begin to explain, however, Zack pulled up the sleeve of his shirt. His arm was covered with the same ancient script that had suddenly appeared on Max's skin weeks ago.

* * *

_**Montreal**_

"The last time I spoke to Elizabeth Renfro," Sandeman told them, "she claimed to have found what I was looking for. This struck me as rather unusual, considering the fact that I never trusted her enough to _tell _her what I was looking for. It seems Dr. Renfro was considering playing both sides against the middle, but hadn't quite come to a decision. Despite being a perfectly ordinary human herself, she must have somehow gotten it into her head that helping the Conclave would somehow be to her benefit – perhaps she felt she was on the losing side and hoped to save herself," he suggested disdainfully.

"Whatever her reasons, she never informed me of your capture, or of the capture of another whose X-5 traits had been passed along to her son. Out of all the escapees, she didn't know which of you I was looking for, and apparently took steps to find out for herself."

"The tank she had Tinga in?" Max remembered with a furious shudder.

"Yes, but she was going about it the wrong way. Like I said, only someone who knew exactly what to look for would find it unless they were very lucky."

"Then how did she know it was me?"

"I told you before that there are _two_ markers which show the rather profound differences between a Familiar and an ordinary human being. The protein build-up in the heart walls, which mutates into a tumour that secretes antibodies to so many different diseases and poisons, is one. The second is this."

The new image that appeared showed two multicoloured DNA double-helixes. Sandeman pointed out the one on the left. "This is the DNA of a normal human being. These green and purple sections are what is commonly known as 'junk DNA'. This is the name given to DNA that modern science has yet to find a function for, or which actually serves no purpose except to fill a gap in a sequence, as in the case of cellular decay. It is widely thought that perhaps ten per cent of a healthy human beings DNA is _actually_ junk - that is to say it serves only the purpose of filling gaps - but gene sequences of unknown function are filed under the same term until their purpose can be determined. Over eighty per cent of human DNA is without known purpose, despite the work carried out by the Human Genome Project. The green sections are those of unknown purpose; the purple are those that have been positively identified as simply filling gaps, and bear in mind, this is according to research other than my own.

"This," he continued, indicating the sample on the right, "is a sample taken from my own blood. As you can see, there is no purple at all, and a fair amount of the green is gone too. Over all, thirty per cent less of what today's science terms 'junk DNA'. This suggests that overall, there is perhaps twenty-five per cent of DNA in the human body that does nothing but take up space. It may be quite some time before the rest of the world comes to this figure."

"So, as far as you know, none of a Familiar's DNA is just filler," Lydecker summarised, "as opposed to around twenty-five percent of say, mine."

"That's almost right," Sandeman said carefully. "Your DNA is slightly unusual, but I'll get to that later." Lydecker seemed confused by this statement, but said nothing.

"Now in the case of the Transgenics, the amount of junk DNA varies depending on the information known at the time a generation was programmed. When we were working on the Template for Joshua and Isaac, roughly five per cent of human DNA had been positively identified as filler. It was this DNA that we began with, swapping out the useless codes for sequences harvested from canine DNA. And as our knowledge of the human genome slowly grew, more useless gene sequences were discovered, and replaced by new ones.

"Familiars," he said, pointing to his own sample, "are the current peak of human evolution; the gold standard of what can be attained without genetic splicing or tampering. The blood ritual, for all its strangeness, is in the end a natural process, as is the rather macabre method that results in all redundant DNA being written out of a Familiar's gene sequence."

"A second ritual?" Max asked. "What, the first one wasn't weird enough?"

"I'm afraid you may find this one far more disturbing," Sandeman announced gravely. "The reason Renfro should never have noticed that you were completely without junk DNA yourself, is that it shouldn't have been so. The reason I needed two of you was that if I had combined all of my work inside one body, it would have been noticed almost as soon as anybody else so much as glanced at an analysis of your DNA."

"But wouldn't another X-5 with perfect DNA just as easily have been noticed?" Lydecker pointed out.

"There was no X-5 with perfect DNA; at least there never should have been until I managed to bring the pair of you together and finish what I'd begun at Manticore."

"It's another fusion, like the poison and the tumour," Max guessed.

"Precisely. Once again there was a Familiar ritual I planned to adapt to a more scientific method. From the time of the child's first initiation, he is indoctrinated into the study of Familiar history, religious practices, and begins combat training. This goes on until the initiate is eighteen years old. Before the age of nineteen, he or she must survive a second ritual; mortal combat with another initiate."

"How does this bring about a second genetic shift?" Lydecker asked curiously.

"You've heard the term, 'To the victor goes the spoils'?" Sandeman asked with a wry grin. "In this case, the reward is the power of the vanquished opponents' heart for consumption."

"Consumption?!"

"Yes; the idea of a victorious warrior eating the heart of his defeated foe has been echoed in many mythologies, but with the Familiars it is far more than a fairy tale. To this date I haven't been able to determine exactly how this happens, but it seems that what causes the blood to be purified, for all of the DNA to be cleaned out of the system, is the meeting of the first Familiar's original marker, the tumour, with that contained in the heart of another."

Lydecker was thoroughly disgusted, and loudly voicing his disgust, when he caught part of a whisper from Max. "What did you say?"

"Zack. He's the other one."

"You're not simply guessing," said Sandeman in response. "There was one thing Renfro did report to me, apparently not feeling it was important enough to conceal, having found nothing of note when she had him examined; she told me the X-5 squad leader, X5-599, had been recaptured, and was being shipped off to another facility for an experimental treatment following a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. With the assistance of an associate at the place he was being sent to, I had a plan in place to extract him. However, when the Gillette facility was cauterised, so was the site where they were holding him. I was never able to recover the body."

"That's because there was no body to recover," Max admitted. "He's alive. When I spoke to Alec, he told me Zack showed up in Terminal City this morning, after the news announced that the story about me dying in the bomb attack wasn't true."

"And where had he been until now?"

* * *

**_Seattle_**

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Well," Alec shrugged, "it may not be the story you were looking for, but that's how it happened."

"So; we attacked Manticore and got caught; they brainwashed me, writing some kind of code into the nanites in my blood that would send me to kill Eyes Only." He paused after the saying the name; his eyes widened a little; he gritted his teeth, shaking. Alec was about to clap him on the shoulder when he seemed to come out of it of his own accord.

"You okay?"

Zack didn't answer him, but continued. "The _one_ person Max asked said there was nothing that could be done to fix the damage, so they wiped my memory and…"

"Not quite as straightforward as that; you're memory was wiped when you went after Logan, and Max... um…"

"Fried me."

"Well, yeah."

"And then, because that one doctor said there was not way to undo the brainwashing, I was sent away to live on the ranch. Like an old pet dog that nobody wants to keep around anymore."

"Okay," said Alec, struggling to find a better way to put it, "I can understand that it doesn't sound too great when you think of it like that," he began, but was interrupted by his phone ringing. He checked the number and flipped it open. "Hey, Doc."

"I got the drugs you needed," Sam greeted him. "Some DTB, Scopolamine, and medical grade diamorphine – heroine. With all the thefts and miscounts and everything else, nobody should notice they're missing, and assuming they don't completely melt the guy's brain…"

"Wouldn't be a big loss, unless he doesn't talk first," Alec interrupted.

"Well, I'd still recommend _extremely_ small doses," the doctor warned sternly. "Even then he's in for a hell of a trip. There's enough in the little bit I'm sending to cause a herd of African elephants permanent brain damage. There's a courier coming soon to pick them up; I'll have them delivered to the house."

"There'll be someone there to take them. Thanks, Sam."

"You're welcome, but next time you need a favour like this and I ask why, please just make something up. Being a party to pharmacological torture isn't what I had in mind when I went to medical school."

"So," Alec said as casually as he could manage after he'd finished on the phone. "Where were we?"

Zack glared at him, stone-faced and silent.

* * *

**_Montreal_**

"And you never noticed any changes after they gave you his heart?" Sandeman asked.

"I had other things to worry about than wondering if I could jump that little bit higher or run faster than before," Max retorted. "Between that bitch Renfro putting a killer virus in my blood to poison Logan, and Son Number One out to wipe out all the freaks while you've been up here peacefully contemplating how to clean up your mess, _I for one _have actually been pretty busy!"

Sandeman smiled slightly at her outburst, like an indulgent father dealing with a petulant little girl. "When you were a child, as I recall you suffered from the same serotonin deficiency as most of the other Transgenics," he mentioned in an offhand manner. "How often have you suffered seizures since the transplant?"

Max opened her mouth to speak, but her mind suddenly snapped to the two bottles of Tryptophan she kept on hand – one in her room in Terminal City, the other under the seat of her motorcycle – neither of which had been opened in months.

After the escape she'd taken the pills regularly, then less and less as no seizures struck her. She hadn't even noticed when it had gotten to the point where she wasn't taking them at all.

"When you received the heart transplant," Sandeman told her, "the protein that had collected around your own heart combined with the protein in his. And then," he nodded towards the Caduceus-like symbol half-hidden under the sleeve of her top, "you were infected with the poison. The order of events was reversed, but the effects were the same. The transplant recoded your DNA, the effects of which included properly regulating the serotonin your brain supplies, negating the need for your medication. You would also have undergone a marked increase in your physical prowess. I understand you recently made short work of a Phalanx team-leader in combat."

"I don't know about 'short work'."

"She should have crushed you without even trying. If she had encountered you a year ago, that's exactly what would have happened. I'll need to test your blood to be certain, but it seems that the process was successful," he announced, "if not quite by the means I had planned. My hope was to find both of you; to have the opportunity to extract samples of the proteins from each of you and combining the two in a test-tube before completing the process."

"How _did_ you plan on finishing the job?" Max asked. "Don't tell me you planned to throw us both into a steel cage so we could fight it out for the other's heart…"

"Not quite," Sandeman responded dryly. "Once I had confirmed my results, it would have been a rather straightforward matter of injecting a sample of the protein harvested from your counterpart into your heart, and vice versa. The idea was to have two of you, partly just in case anything happened to either of you, but also to make use of the additional gene sequences I'd spliced into your DNA using samples from other Familiars."

"But now it'll only work with me?

"I believe so. Even though his blood will still contain trace amounts of the protein, the tumour which would evolve to produce the antibodies forms on the heart; and given that his heart is now a machine, it's highly unlikely his body will produce the antibodies like yours does.

"However," he continued, the faintest hint of optimism in his voice for the first time, "the fact that he's alive does mean that certain opportunities I thought closed to us may still be available."

"What kind of opportunities?" Max asked, confused.

Once again the old man launched into full-on lecture mode, as if addressing a full classroom. "Familiar culture being as secretive as it has always been, our written history is non-existent, and very little evidence of our heritage exists today. You're aware of the Kiloma gravesite that was preserved in Seattle until recently; this, and a few other small examples like it were kept intact because they marked the introduction of a new bloodline into the mix. Apart from these small preservations, it is through word of mouth alone that the teachings of our ancestors are passed down through the generations."

"So it's fair to assume a lot's gotten along the way," Lydecker noted.

"Quite so. The most significant loss is in terms of preternatural abilities."

"Like telekinesis?" Max wondered aloud, vividly remembering the kid from the Willoughby school.

"Among other things; extra-sensory perception, astral projection, psychic abilities. Familiars are not like a religious movement, sweeping around the world piece-by-piece, conquering or indoctrinating various cultures. In fact, we have always been there, all around the world; stemming from various ancient civilisations, hidden groups which discovered the breeding methods still practiced by modern Familiars. And for thousands of years, they were in almost constant communication with each other.

"This communication was accomplished through astral projection; telepaths among various tribes speaking to each other as easily as if they were sitting in the same room. However, their paranoia, and insistence on not keeping written records of our history or teachings has led to the loss of a great deal of knowledge. Some of the special breeding lines which flourished in the olden days now dwindle on the point of extinction; others passed that point of no return long ago.

"While I was working on the earliest subjects in the Manticore program, other Familiars were attempting to discover how to unlock these abilities once again, by studying brain scans of those among our number who possessed special abilities. Even though they found what they were looking for in the discovery of the neural pathways which activated when a person made use of such an ability, they failed to devise a method through which to activate these neural pathways in others."

"But you figured it out?"

"Yes."

"And programmed all that stuff into me?" Max remarked sceptically. "To think, this whole time I've been scraping by on minimum wage working for Normal, I could've made my fortune reading Tarot cards and levitating teacups."

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what you may be capable of," Sandeman admitted. "There was one thing I wanted to be certain of; a mental link between yourself and Zack."

"Mental as in telepathic?"

Sandeman nodded, but Lydecker spoke up before he could continue. He'd gone slightly pale. "Did you ever look for any of those markers in normal humans?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"I never had any reason to," Sandeman told him with a shake of his head. "Why do you ask?"

"Is that why they killed her?"

Sandeman looked as confused as Max felt. "I'm not sure what you're…" the old man began.

"Answer the damn question!" Lydecker roared. "Was she one of them? It wasn't me you were watching, was it? It was Rachel. What she could do…she was one of them. Tell me!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sandeman responded calmly. "If your wife claimed to have some sort of extra-sensory ability, this is the first I've heard of it. As for any connection to the Familiars, Rachel was never my concern. I always suspected that if and when they decided to strike, they would come after you."

"Me? Then my mother…"

"Your mother was quite normal. Her husband, however, was not."

Sandeman limped to a counter top across the room, returning a moment later with a manila file-folder, which he handed to Lydecker.

"This is him?" Lydecker asked, flipping open the folder.

Max leaned forward, looking upside-down at the photographs clipped to the front page. They were both passport-type pictures of a man with a cruel, sharply-angled face and brilliant blue eyes. The first picture was older; the subject perhaps in his late forties or early fifties. Judging by the age of the man in the second photo, it must have been fairly recent, as he seemed to be at least seventy-five years old. Gone somewhat to seed, the face had plumped up somewhat, but around the eyes and mouth the same sharply hewn features hung on. Any chance of thinking that these photos were of two different men would have been slim even without the unmistakeable forget-me-not blue eyes, which should have been kind but instead made Max's gut freeze over.

_Captain Hook._

Max started a little as the thought seemed to leap into her head. She shot a glance over her shoulder, half-expecting to find someone standing nearby, whispering in her ear, but there was nobody. Giving her head a rough shake, she turned back to Lydecker and Sandeman, neither of whom had noticed her reaction to the photograph.

"Donald William Watson; a model Familiar for as long as I knew him." Sandeman grimaced to show what he thought of this commendation. "You were the second child she conceived, the first having been miscarried in the beginning of the second trimester, with a little help from the father. The same would have happened to you, had your mother not become curious about her husbands frequent absences. Suspecting he was having an affair, she had him followed by a private detective, who returned to tell her that her husband was involved in what seemed to be some sort of Satanic cult. Suffice it to say, your mother wasted no time in leaving, but she was found again very quickly. Luckily for her," he added, "she was found by me."

"And you never brought her back to your people," Lydecker guessed.

"No. Instead, I took steps to ensure she was well-hidden, including moving her to another location and setting up a new identity for her; Marion Lydecker. Every now and again I checked up on her; and you, of course, but after ensuring her security, I never made direct contact again, for fear of jeopardising her safety and yours. After your mother died, I was still keeping watch over you, but not as closely as I should have. I thought you were safe, that they had no idea where you were and would never find out," the old man explained sadly. "I was wrong. It seems they found you after somebody recognised your mother's picture when her obituary was published."

"Why not come after me right there and then?" Lydecker demanded. "Why would they go after Rachel at all?"

"The decision had been made by the Conclave to spare your life, but then they received news that forced them to take action. Had I known, I could perhaps have prevented Rachel's murder, but as I said, I wasn't watching as closely as I should have been."

"They killed her because she was pregnant," Lydecker choked, fighting not to cry at the memory of that day.

"Like any second child conceived by a selected host, you were summarily considered a reject; unwanted DNA, impure. To most medical tests, the genetic differences between yourself and any other person are negligible. You may be less prone to disease, slightly more physically powerful, and perhaps a little more intelligent, but nothing to make a fuss about. To the Conclave, however, you were an undesirable bloodline. The moment they found out your wife was carrying a child, they ruled to cut off the bloodline. It was your father who carried out the order, and decided on his own way to interpret it. Cruelty is a somewhat popular pastime among Familiars. Rather than simply kill you, he decided that your wife and unborn child should die; the path of most torment for you."

The file-folder dropped to the floor, and Max instinctively rushed forward to catch Lydecker as he sank to his knees; his breath ragged between heartbroken sobs and howls of rage.

* * *

**Author's Note: _First off, I'd like to apologise for the huge delay in getting this chapter posted. Second, we're almost to the aforementioned hokey science lecture. In a couple of chapters, things will pick up action-wise, and continue that way for a good part of the remainder of the story. The clash between the Transgenics and Familiars will have massive consequences, and all loose ends will be tied off, in what I hope will be considered a fitting end to Max's story._**

**_Hope to see all of you at the end. In the meantime, please review._**

**_Sionnach_**


	10. Chapter Eight

_**Montreal**_

Highly polished marble tiles covered the floor and walls in the otherwise plain kitchen – white on black for the floor, black on white for the walls. The various cabinets were dark, unadorned wood, and a large brass ceiling fan was home to a thick layer of dust, having likely not been used since the long Canadian winter began. Max stared out through the screen doors into the massive garden, absently watching a robin dart around the well-tended fir trees that ringed the edge of the garden, and automatically taking stock of Sandeman's security.

The walls stood fifteen feet high, with cameras all around at intervals of every ten feet or so. Flickers of movement in the windows of a nearby building suggested quite a few guards, though only one patrolled where she could see; trudging through the snow with a submachine gun held in the crook of one arm, while his other hand held tight on the leash of a large grey husky.

"Aren't those a little friendly to be used as guard dogs?" she asked.

"They're very intelligent," Sandeman replied. "With proper training, they can be ideal for many tasks. They're also not the kind of animals one might expect to be attacked by. Rather like yourself," he pointed out. "Very few people would judge you as capable of much violence at a glance. I'm sure that's an advantage that has come in handy for you in the past."

"Once or twice."

Sandeman poured steaming green tea into three cups, and handed the first to Lydecker, who sat quietly on a stool at the large counter in the centre of the room, slowly turning over pages and pictures in the file Sandeman had presented him on his father. Max felt the same chill creep down her spine as she picked up the third cup, glancing at one of the pictures for a split second.

Despite the fact that she knew she'd never met the man, his eyes seemed to bore into her, terrifyingly familiar, like a nightmare she'd suddenly discovered was real. She took a sip of the tea, but it didn't really help. Taking a seat across the counter, she closed her own eyes, but the nightmare image remained, hovering directly in front of her, and a faint, terrified whisper came to her again. She couldn't pick out any words, just noise, as if the speaker was struggling to talk while being strangled. Max had known almost instantly whose voice it was, even though every ounce of logical thought told her otherwise. Finally she opened her eyes, set down her cup, and asked what she'd wanted to ask back in the lab.

"What could she do?" It took a moment for Lydecker to realise he was being spoken to. His head snapped up from the file as if he'd been startled out of his sleep. "Your wife," Max clarified. "What could she do that made you think they might have been after her?"

Lydeker took a sip from his own cup, then set it aside, apparently deciding it wasn't to his taste. "I'm not really sure," he said after a moment. "Rachel always said it was some kind of sixth sense, like precognition. She'd just get a chill out of nowhere and know something bad was about to happen. It saved her life more than once, but I always just put it down to good instincts. I figured she was reading too much into it."

"I'm pretty sure it was real," said Max, as once again the cold shiver crawled through her, this time accompanied by a slight buzzing in her head. She shook off both, and took a deep breath. "I think I inherited it."

At first, nobody made a sound. Max let the pronouncement hang in the air for a moment, as Lydecker stared at her, his eyes as wide as saucers. Suddenly, Sandeman realised what she'd just said and erupted into a fit of coughing and spluttering, hastily covering his mouth to avoid spewing tea all over the place.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you haven't told him," Max remarked, as Sandeman regained some of his composure.

"It is kind of a difficult one to just drop into the conversation," said Lydecker defensively.

"I beg your pardon," Sandeman growled, gripping the counter with both hands so hard that Max thought it might crumble between his fingers, "but what – _**exactly**__ – _is it, Donald, that you haven't told me?!"

* * *

_**Manticore Facility, Gillette, Wyoming – 1999**_

With a name like Manny Mann, it was little wonder he'd had trouble making friends as a kid, but he'd never really been bothered by this. Not hanging out with other kids left him with plenty of spare time on his hands; time he'd spent reading, researching, and starting minor fires in his bedroom with a chemistry set and whatever else he could make use of. By the time he was twenty, Manny had a doctorate in genetics, and was well on his way to a second in biotechnology. The moment he'd completed this second, he was approached by DOD and immediately accepted their offer to join the Manticore program.

In theory, these days Manny was chief tech in charge of the embryo preparation stage for the X-5 generation. In practice, he couldn't work for ten minutes without somebody demanding to know what he was doing, or which particular sample he was working on, or whatever else they could come up with for no apparent reason other than to distract him from what he was doing.

Today had been a particularly bad day; Sandeman had been in and out of the lab every fifteen minutes all day, demanding to know when the last of the embryos would be ready for implantation, even though Manny was weeks ahead of schedule. Some suit from DOD had called him, ordering a copy of the latest results on the research into studies of the unfit X-4s who had been recently dissected, and even though this wasn't Manny's department, he'd been forced to spend the better part of an hour gathering the lab reports himself and sending them on. He'd been in a foul enough mood _before_ returning from that ridiculous errand, getting back to the lab to find one of the military goons sitting at his work area, flipping through his notes.

"What the hell are you doing?" Manny snapped at him. "Get away from there!"

The officer, a youngish man with blond hair and a dead-eyed gaze, paid no attention to the way Manny spoke to him. "Sandeman wants to know how soon the next batch of X-5 embryos will be prepped," he said. "Our budget's up for review, and the Pentagon weren't too happy when they saw the numbers for the amount of X-4s who displayed seizures. They'd expected that problem to be dealt with."

"Look, Larson…"

"Lydecker."

"Whatever. If your Pentagon friends want to come down and give this a shot, they're more than welcome to try, considering how easy they seem to think it should be. I'm sure they'll have no trouble working out the conflicts between the animal and human DNA that block the production of serotonin because the evolutionary gaps between one species and another are about the size of the grand canyon!"

"Didn't I hear somewhere that humans share ninety-nine per cent of their DNA with the animal world?" Lydecker asked.

"Thank you, Discovery Channel!" Manny exalted. "Well, what you may not have heard is that when you mix up different kinds of DNA inside a living being, human _or _animal, the changes you see in the body aren't always going to correspond to what happens in the brain. Different animals require different levels of certain neurotransmitters, vitamins, minerals and acids, and when you splice in so much conflicting DNA, you get one brain trying to cater for five animals. That's why so many of the X-series fail, as opposed to just one or two of the earlier experiments."

"Because with the earlier generations, there was usually only one type of animal used in the genetic template. Less confusion."

"Exactly. But the Pentagon wants these guys to be multi-purpose as opposed to task-specific, which means more splicing, which means the amount of conflicts you create rises exponentially with each separate species you integrate into a single genome."

"So what do I tell the Pentagon?"

"Tell them we're working on it. The nanites we'll be using for the X-5 generation should help cut down on the problem, but if they want a miracle, tell them to get religion."

"I'm sure they'll love that."

"Why are you asking _me_ this, anyway? Right now, my whole job is just preparing the embryos. None of the real work begins until after implantation."

"I've never really understood the process," Lydecker admitted. "I don't have much of a head for science."

"Well, all I really do here is ensure viability, and take steps to be sure the embryos will take."

"Is that any different from what they do in standard IVF procedures?"

Manny paused for a second, regarding Lydecker curiously. "Didn't you just say you don't know how any of this works?"

"Well, I know a little," Lydecker told him with a shrug. "My wife and I were trying in vitro fertilisation before she died."

"Well, we have methods they don't. In an IVF clinic, they implant multiple embryos to give a better chance that one will be successfully fertilised. We don't do that. The preparation process here means that with one embryo, there's a ninety-five per cent chance of conception. But that's all we do," Manny pointed out. "The real work is performed while the women we're using for the project are already pregnant, using the placenta to introduce the engineered gene sequences into the foetus."

"So there's nothing special about the embryos you use?" Lydecker queried.

"No. But all the work we've done here since Joshua and Isaac has taught us much more effective methods of making sure we hit the mark with implantation. And, to answer Sandeman's question," he added, turning to his notes, "we should be ready to go by next Monday. Just three more left to prepare; here." He jabbed his pen at the list of barcode numbers. "Once they're done, I'll be running the final checks for viability, and they'll be ready to go."

"Thanks," Lydecker grunted, then left without another word. Manny didn't notice him pause briefly at the storage unit containing the unprepared embryos, or taking one last glance around him to ensure there was nobody else around.

Moments later, when Manny was called out of the lab by a page Lydecker had arranged, Lydecker was back inside before the door could even swing shut again. He'd already known about the lab's method of using only a single embryo, and had told this to the technician he'd bribed at the clinic he and Rachel had been using before her murder, but he'd needed to be sure that there was nothing done to the embryos before implantation that would reveal what he was doing.

Still not taking any chances, he used a stolen code to open the storage unit, as opposed to his own. He instantly spotted the last sample noted on Manny's list, marked _X5-452_. From the small plastic container full of ice in the bag he carried, Lydecker carefully removed the sealed glass vile, and swapped it out for the one in the storage unit, which he tossed into a medical waste bin by the door as he hurried out.

* * *

_**Montreal**_

For a long time, Sandeman said nothing. He half-stood, half-slumped at the counter, mouthing silently, his head slightly bowed, and his fingers still biting into the wood.

Lydecker wisely kept quiet while he waited for the old man to react, as did Max. Turning to look behind her, she saw the guard she'd spotted before disappear inside the outer building, and seconds later, another emerged with a different dog; another husky, smaller than the other and pure white, almost invisible surrounded by nothing but snow. The guard took a few seconds sprinting on the spot, then fastened the top button on his coat and began walking along the same route as the last guy. Off in the far corner of the garden, a third had appeared from the around the other side of the house, but Max had scarcely spotted him when her attention was drawn back to the kitchen by a few drops of hot water catching her hand as Sandeman's cup sailed by Lydecker's head.

"You IDIOT!" Sandeman bellowed, as the cup shattered against the thick glass of the patio door, leaving a large crack where it hit.

Lydecker, having dodged just in time to avoid having his head split open, wiped a splash of tea off his cheek. "Well, maybe if I'd known what was at stake at the time, I wouldn't have tried it," he suggested calmly. "If you planned on bringing me in on this, you might have considered telling me what you were up to from the beginning."

"And perhaps if I'd known what a complete moron you were, I would have simply put you out of misery all those years ago, instead of risking the entire world by bringing you into Manticore!" Sandeman snapped. All evidence of the weakness in his leg seemed momentarily to have disappeared. In his rage, he stood perfectly straight, adding inches to his height as he did so. His cane was forgotten, hanging on the counter by its handle.

Lydecker, suddenly as every bit as angry as the old man, stood and drew himself up as if to attack, but Max caught his shoulder and forced him back down onto the stool a little to roughly, resulting in audible crack as one of the legs splintered. She placed herself between the pair of them, facing Sandeman. "Knock it off," she ordered shortly. "You already checked my blood and every other damn thing while I was unconscious. You know there's no problem."

Despite briefly glaring at her in consternation, the old man quickly gained control of himself, and sat down again. "All the years I've invested into this," he muttered. "My wife; my sons. I apologise, but to have so much thrown in jeopardy…"

"I get it," Max told him, "but there was no harm done." Stepping off to the side, she leaned against the wall. "Right now we got bigger things to worry about. You said the work you did on weaponizing the virus was full of errors, and that they should still be years from fixing it. You sure of that?"

"I can't be certain. I doubt there's a Familiar alive today who wouldn't kill me on sight, so finding one who would be willing to help is an impossibility. Mr. Gottlieb and his companions have been keeping a detailed log of their activities in Seattle, which include maintaining a watch over some of the Familiars there. This way, they've managed to locate two facilities owned by the Conclave within Washington State."

"Why there? The lab where they're working on the virus could be anywhere. It might not even be in the U.S."

"The lab is wherever James McKinley is," Sandeman said with certainty. "He's a senior member of the Conclave. He's no scientist, but McKinley has been involved on some level or another in the virus project ever since he completed his training. By now he's almost certainly in charge of the entire operation, and despite his various duties to the government, he has scarcely set foot outside of Seattle in almost five years."

"I'll tell Alec to make information on The Coming the priority when he's having Mitchell questioned."

"Very well," Sandeman agreed. "I'd also like to arrange for your counterpart – Zack, is it? – to come here fairly soon. He may no longer be necessary in terms of immunizing the world at large against the effects of the virus, but if my other work was successful, the pair of you should be capable of some rather extraordinary things, even in comparison with the other Transgenics. However much time we may have before the Conclave is prepared to launch their attack, I'd rather not waste any. You both have a lot of preparation ahead of you," he warned, "if the world is to survive what's to come. Virus or no virus, the Familiars will stop at nothing to proclaim themselves the masters of this world."

* * *

_**Seattle**_

The guards spoke not a single word the entire time they'd sat on the plane. When they'd boarded the private flight, a cuffed and shackled Ames had been shoved roughly into a seat and left there the whole way back, then pulled upwards the moment the plane landed, and brought to a waiting black limo, which he was unceremoniously tossed into the back seat of.

The drive took about fifty minutes, the car and its government plates passing through checkpoints unimpeded, before speeding up considerably once outside the more populated areas. Eventually turning sharply off the road, the car sped up two miles of dirt before reaching the gates of what looked like a private estate. Ames had been here once or twice before, to report to Danaide on his attempts to clean up the mess after Manticore had been destroyed.

From the outside, the mansion looked little different than the few other very expensive homes around the area. The only real external difference was the guards.

All those living nearby were ranked among some of the wealthiest people in three states, each one of them employing a private security force. None, however, had security quite as formidable as the house Ames had been brought to. No fewer than ten guards – all Familiars, of course – could be seen from the front of the house, not counting those who stood in the forty-foot-tall sniper towers situated at both ends of the thirty-foot-tall walls, which were topped off with razor-wire, and motion-sensitive cameras scanning the land outside, where all foliage, rocks, and anything else that might serve as a hiding place had been cleared up to a distance of half a mile. Any trees that had once occupied the perimeter had long ago been pulled up by their very roots, leaving nothing but grass, which was frequently cut. More motion sensors were buried in the soil, and if even the smallest animal trespassed on the land, it was immediately found, killed, and disposed of.

One or two of the guards glanced contemptuously in White's direction when he was pulled from the car. Only now, surrounded by a dozen heavily armed brethren, were his restraints removed. He marched without being told towards the door, which emitted a loud mechanical _buzz _and swung open as he approached. Inside, the house oozed the snobbery typical of others like it. High, ornately decorated ceilings, classical paintings, statues and busts – mostly imitation, but still of a high quality – and old-fashioned, richly upholstered furniture could be seen in every direction.

More guards stood within, their high tech equipment and the additional cameras looking quite out of place. One spotted Ames and jerked his head towards a heavy wooden door to the right of a nearby staircase.

"Fe'nos Tol," Ames greeted the guard as he walked towards the door. He received no reply.

Immediately behind the door was another staircase; this one leading underground. It was as he descended these stairs that the house truly began to change. Wood, marble and plaster gave way to unpolished dark stone, and all decoration ended at the top of the stairs.

The large underground room looked more like a medieval dungeon than ever. The modern office desk that had been at the far end of the room the last time Ames was here had been replaced a larger, heavy old wooden one, and the PC was also gone, replaced by a laptop, which sat powered off and folded over. Ames also noticed a pair of large dried up blood stains nobody had made much of an effort to clean up. But what drew his attention more than any of these things was a massive steel door opposite the plain wooden one through which he had just entered.

When Ames had been here in the past, only the room he was standing in had been here before. He slowly approached the door, and peered through a small round window at head height, like a porthole on a ship. Despite the total darkness on the other side, Ames could just about pick out the shape of something alive crouched on the other side, but couldn't quite determine its features. It seemed human at first glance, but as it became aware of him, it shifted its position and stood to peer back at him. Something about the way it moved made him wonder, and then its eyes came into view. Most of its face was obscured, but the eyes shone brightly; the only thing Ames could get a clear look at.

_Definitely not human, _he mused.

He stared for a long moment at the creature, and it did nothing but stare back. Ames examined the door and the glass of the porthole, and could tell instantly that it was soundproof. Then, suddenly seeing that the creature was now right up against the glass, its gleaming, narrow eyes looking at him as if he were a meal, he took an involuntary step back, and started a little when he bumped into McKinley, who was standing directly behind him.

"Nothing to be ashamed of," McKinley said conversationally. "She has that effect on everyone."

"She?" Ames peered at the glass again. The eyes were gone.

"I'll introduce you two in a moment." McKinley looked him over briefly, and clearly disapproved of what he saw. "You're out of shape. You look like a bum."

"I had to change my appearance," Ames told him unapologetically. "You know appearances aren't everything. I would've at least shaved, but I've been tied up like an animal for almost twenty-four hours."

"You can do that later. For now, I have an assignment for you."

"First I want to see my son."

"No." McKinley's tone was friendly enough, but his face was not that of a man willing to compromise. "This first. Don't worry about Ray for now. He survived the blood ritual, as you said he would. He's one of us, after all. And he's doing okay, despite being pretty shaken up."

"Because you made him watch those goons put a hatchet through his aunt's face and threatened to do the same to him?" Ames didn't bother keeping his feelings on the matter out of his voice or his expression.

"Concern for your wife's siblings?"

"Ray didn't need to see that; he's nine years old!"

"And as far as many are concerned, he's the son of a traitor," McKinley hissed. "The only reason you aren't both dead now is because I vouched for you. A lot of people whose opinions matter were talking about bad blood, saying you're too much like your father; saying we should just deal with all of you. I'm the one who convinced them that you still had your uses, and that you can be trusted. Am I wrong?"

Swallowing what he was about to say about those who had spoken against him, Ames took a deep breath. "No."

"Good. Then you'll carry out your assignment, convince the others that we still need you, and then you'll get your son back."

"What do you need?"

"One of our own has been captured by the Transgenics. Ben Mitchell. Witnesses in Sector Two saw him fallout out of a fifth floor window of the building the old burial ground is underneath. He was followed out the window by a girl we can only assume was a Transgenic assigned to protect the reporter he'd been ordered to eliminate. She tossed him into a van and took him to Terminal City. Two of our people followed, and were killed in a shootout with the Transgenics and the National Guard."

"You want me to pull him out?"

"If you can," McKinley shrugged. "If not, you'll have to kill him before he can talk."

"That's not very likely. Besides," White offered, "what could he tell them that could really hurt us?"

"Isn't it enough that I'd rather not risk finding out?"

"Not really. Someone in his position would be insulated from sensitive information, just in case something like this ever happened. Unless..." he thought for a second, and had to laugh. "What's happened while I was away?"

"We had something of a breakthrough recently. Naturally, this knowledge would be kept as quiet as possible, but even our kind aren't above such things as rumour mills."

"How big a breakthrough?"

"Big enough that the Transgenics finding out at this point is the only thing that could undo us."

"And the only way the Conclave is willing to trust me again is if I do this alone?" White scoffed. "I went into Jam Pony with an entire Phalanx team, and we got our asses handed to us by a handful of these freaks. Now you're expecting me to sneak into a sector full of them, alone, grab Mitchell and get out without being torn to pieces?"

"You won't be alone." McKinley walked past him, pulled the two heavy bolts on the door, and stepped back.

The creature on the side shoved the door open slowly, and stepped into the light. 'She' was a little taller than White, who realised now why her eyes were the only part of her he'd been able to discern through the porthole. In addition to the ankle-length, ceremonial black robe, she wore a military issue black gas mask. The entire ensemble, along with her narrow, snakelike eyes flickering green, white and black, plus the fact that she was bald as an egg, made her look and sound like a bizarre cross between Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort.

"Take off the mask," McKinley ordered. "And hold your damn breath this time."

The creature slowly reached up behind her head and loosened the gas mask, then gripped it under her chin and yanked it off. Ames grimaced at what lay underneath.

"What… are you out of your MIND?" he demanded of McKinley. "You did _this_ to a Priestess?"

"As Daneide said more than once, even Sandeman's work has its benefits if we're not afraid to take advantage," McKinley shrugged. "And for the record, she volunteered for the procedure. The cell is an unfortunate but necessary precaution. She follows orders well enough, but since her… transformation, she's picked up some unusual urges. Tried to eat one of the sentries a couple of weeks ago. She didn't get much of a meal out of him before she was pulled off, but I think he wishes she'd finished the job."

"This is insane," White insisted.

"You don't dictate policy, Brother White. If you intend to redeem yourself, this is your assignment. Your new partner here can keep the Transgenics occupied while you go after Mitchell. Now, are in agreement, or do I make a call and order that your son be given the axe?"

The creature scrutinized White with hungry eyes. Somehow, it managed to display a wide, wicked grin while still holding its breath.

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**Next Chapter Coming Soon; featuring mythological creatures, ****hallucinogenic drugs, wacky dreams, bloody violence, and Bob Dylan.**


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